A Different Sort of Concert
by Z3raphim
Summary: Beautifully Sacred-fanfic. Love Ailisraeyn's work so I wrote her a tale.    A creature from Elsewhere shows up at La Sangue Cantante with a proposition and a request for the owner, Maurice. A concert the vampire can't say no to.
1. Chapter 1: Boundaries

New to this editor so excuse the line breaks, please.

All thanks for this tale goes to **Ailisraevyn**. I enjoy her work _Beautifully Sacred_ a -lot- and it's a great setting. The Twilight characters obviously belong to Stephanie Meyers but Maurice is a fun and interesting original character to have had the opportunity to speak for. Thanks _Little-Bit_ for the go-ahead for me to write and post this. It was great fun.

This chapter is meant to read while listening to a playlist I put together here: kane[dot]ragwars[dot]net/Music/ (Tried to make that a link but this editor is...silly.)

My personal internet mp3 player. I do own physical copies of all this music and I personally know SG. And I particularly enjoy Evol Intent. Don't know if you read the same speed as I do but starting the first track on the playlist about the time Zeraphim walks into the building cues it quite well to the story for me.

And lastly, a small introduction. Zeraphim is my personal character. Am writing several original short stories and also working on my first novel with an army buddy. Enjoy!

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**A Different Sort of Concert – Chapter 1: **_**Boundaries

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**_

A bright, cold moon glares down on a clearing, soaked from a recent rain shower, in a forest of massive trees. A squat building, wrapped by a modest parking lot minus a paved road out, sits against the edge of a wet glade on an Alaskan mountainside. A few rather expensive looking 4x4s seem to litter the lot, parked as if discarded.

A hooded chap walks out of the tree line.

Dressed in a shade of gray that's black like charcoal, he is virtually invisible in the moonlit night. Two things mark him. Soft, blue-white shimmers peek from the hood as he strides across the clearing. And something at the tips of his fingers glitters erratically with purple twinkles.

He pads silently across the clearing to the right side of the building. Booted feet pass by low windows into the basement of the structure and the weird glittering fingertips drag along the siding. Tiny screeching rasps through the stillness, faintly glowing trails left in the wall by razor-tipped fingers. They fade slowly as the curious and silent stranger makes his way around the corner to the front of the building.

Left of center, a set of double doors is flanked by 2 men in grey suits. The hooded fellow walks out in front of them and stops, just outside of easy arm's reach. The one on the left shoots a dirty look at the newcomer, whose face was obscured by shadow as the hood hung low as if the man was looking at the ground.

A rough voice, one of the guards, breaks the silence, somehow barking in Italian and managing to make a beautiful language sound distasteful.

"Stato tua attività. O essere andato."

The hood rises slowly and the shadow blanketing the man's face seems to slither away. The soft shimmers from before reveal themselves to be brilliantly glowing blue-white eyes, their light setting the whole entryway ablaze. The two burly men in grey squint against the sudden brightness, raising arms to shield their own eyes.

A deafening multitude of whispers explode inside their minds. Millions of voices all speaking in hushed breaths at the same time but never at once assail both the men's ears and synapses. A growling undertone rattles the ground beneath their feet.

"I'm to see your boss. And you couldn't force me to leave if you tried."

A force like that of a giant hand sweeps out of the night air and slaps both men up against the side of the building. The stranger steps forward as the left door swings open. He pauses in the doorway and the voice assaults the men's minds again, less intense this time.

"The force is purely business. Need to establish boundaries early. You are inferior to I. And that is all that need be said about that. Guard your post with the knowledge that a monster meaner than you both protects this place for the next 2 days."

With that, the men stumble as they are released and the door swings shut with a whisper. The stranger had vanished into the building, leaving them wondering. Being the _soldati di ventura _that they were, they took the word of the stranger at face value and went back to their posts.

XXXXXXXXXX

Zeraphim stopped just inside the doors and slid down the left wall a bit, the shadows in the room chittering at the edges of his hearing. They seemed happy to see him and as such, wrapped him in blissful darkness.

Z draws in a deep breath, enjoying the pleasantly coppery smell of warm human blood permeating the air. He notes the strangely sweet smell of these vampires' venom. In the millions of different shades of reality, he'd found many forms of vampire.

These were the only ones he'd ever found that advertised their power quite so loudly.

Their skin glittered in the sun, as if made of diamond.

Their eyes did curious things dependent upon their diet. Human blood made their eyes a deep, liquid red. He'd run across a few that had orange-yellow eyes; they seemed to have a disdain for taking human life. Other than those two things, they were little different than the vampiric creatures that Z himself had borrowed ideas from when forming his "human" body eons ago.

The astral being peers across the room, looking for the source of the smell, his blue-white eyes shimmering softly behind a veil of living darkness.

Vats of blood, IV bags full of the stuff, glasses of it on the room-length bar.

Z smirks. He was ok with the idea of blood everywhere.

His eyes drift to an attractive dark-haired lady standing behind a set of turntables and a mixer sitting on the backside of a stage. The platform stood about 4 feet off the floor and ran most of the left side of the room, opposite the wall-bar. Between the two is a dance floor and packed into the less crowded areas were tables. Black curtains draped from the ceiling in artfully arranged patterns, giving the room a hushed feel.

Enough errant thoughts had filtered into his head by now that he knew who he was looking for and so he moves off to find the man. Z pushes off the wall with a whispered word to the shadows, who slink off and slither back to their hiding places.

The dark-clothed astral being starts into the crowd on the dance floor. The music had just started a new track. A funky little opening with light cymbals led into a heavy bass thump. Then a deafening multi-layered growl echoes from the speakers.

_A man fucked with my father tonight. And I put him in his place…_

Z smirked at the lyrics and darted into the press of bodies that were whipping themselves into a frenzy with the stomp-slap beat of Evol Intent's "Dead On Arrival". He sways with the motion of people lost in a beat, bouncing off bodies that would be sweaty if they were still alive and laughing quietly inside his hoodie. Casting his eyes to the stage, the cute lady with black hair on the tables locks gazes with his faintly shimmering blues for a moment as the beat drops for a lyric break.

She gets a fanged and too-perfect grin before the crowd pushes Z out of sight.

Z closes his eyes for a moment as the body-press spins him about, swirling through people like they were water. His ears prick to the music as he hears another track begin quietly in the background; pretty lady on the tables was good. The treble fades from the beat, leaving the thump-pop of the bass and muted glitchy mids.

Z smiles as the operatic opening to Evol Intent's "The Oscine's Lament" begins, the kick of the bass fading to gone, leaving just the muted mids mixing with opening for next track. Just as they fade, cymbals start and a sharp, intricate, and precise beat starts and the song begins. Z flows out of the crowd about the same time and turns back toward the stage.

He locks eyes with a grinning beauty with raven tresses. The astral being winks and grins back.

She answers it with a thumbs-up, setting her headset down and dancing behind the tables.

Z turns away and walks toward the bar, hands jammed in his pockets. Bartenders trundle back and forth, pouring glasses of blood and other random drinks of a myriad colors and smells. Z waves to one pouring a glass of blood and nods at the bar. The barman strides over to him and looks a question at Z. Who grins and replies in a warm baritone, loud enough to be heard over the thump of the music but not strained at all.

"Put it on _his_ tab."

With that, he points a bladeless fingertip that glows a faint purple-blue across to the back of the room at a sandy haired man with kind eyes. The barman arches a brow as he sets the drink down, flowing faster-than-human along behind the marble countertop to the end of the bar. He waves to the man who turns from a conversation with two shirtless vampires near a curtained off doorway at the back of the room.

The man narrows bloody-red eyes at the barkeep and strides to the bar for a hushed conversation in Italian. Z smirks and takes a sip of the warm blood while he waits. Listens to the guy tell his boss that something strange just ordered a drink and put it on his tab. Chuckles inwardly as they discuss briefly the meaning of 'something strange'. The conversation goes silent in Z's mind as both men travel back up the bar to him, blurring with their vampiric speed.

Red eyes lock with Z's shimmering blues as the astral being turns to face the _flowing-forward_ form of the man from the end of the bar. A fanged grin greets the newcomer. The baritone from before lilts over the drone of a random techno track.

"Maurice, isn't it?"

The man lifts a glass of blood from the marble bartop and looks at Z with an arched eyebrow.

"How is it you know my name? And why, dear fellow, are you putting drinks on my tab?" This is said with an offered toast from ringed fingers.

Glasses clink, blood swirls, and both drink.

"I know a great many things that would surprise and amaze even you, old man. But there isn't enough time for all that. Would you indulge a new business associate a walk to a quieter location?"

Maurice narrows his eyes at Z sharply, "Business associate?"

Z just grins again and quaffs the rest of the blood in a gulp. The glass thumps on the marble top as the astral being pushes away, starting toward the other side of the room. The vampire follows with his eyes the strange but blatantly powerful creature walking across his bar. The sheer presence of the stranger that had just ordered a drink, apparently on the house, felt like a physical weight on him. It was almost like he was being pulled on.

Curious to no end about the "business associate" comment from this enigmatic monster, Maurice sets the glass of blood down and follows Z to the inconspicuous fire door on the other side of the room, off center from the stage.

Z pushes out the fire door and into the quiet, cool night. Before it closes, he whispers a word to the shadows in the lee of the building.

An eerie screeching echoes through the night and Z is tossed straight upward.

The astral being throws his feet upward as he's lifted violently. Turning heels-to-the-sky, razor-tipped fingers lance out and catch the lip of the roof behind. His feet snatch over, a back flip into a silent crouch.

The door below opens and Maurice turns, looking about. Turns his face up and back almost immediately.

That's where he'd have gone to intimidate someone.

He wasn't wrong; Z sat on the lip of the roof, shadowed by the moonlight, waving fingers capped with inch-long blades glittering purple-blue, like oxidized steel. The only reason the vampire could tell Z was grinning a dangerously bladed grin was because his eyes were glowing a much brighter blue-white now.

Z stands and walks out of sight.

Maurice took a few steps forward from the door and turned to face the wall. Looking up and hiking up the legs of his rather expensive trousers, the vampire tenses faintly and springs upward, blurring faintly as he hops to the low rooftop easily. He lands lightly and stops, straightening his vest and pants a bit.

Light metallic clinking, like clapping, drifts across the roof to Maurice's ears.

He looks over at Z. Who was grinning impishly and tapping the ends of razortips together like he was applauding the vampire's landing. Maurice arches a brow and flows across the rooftop to Z. They both turn and pad silently toward the rear edge of the building. Stopping there, they can almost see down the mountain in the bright moonlit night.

Maurice starts to comment on that but is interrupted by a multitude of whispers slithering quietly across his synapses.

"I _can_ see down the mountain."

The vampire arches a brow at the cryptic comment. He starts to ask what Z means but finds himself cut off again.

"I see the world in a much different manner than you. I see all of reality in the sky. Well…all of this pocket of reality anyway."

Maurice finally breaks in, "So what then do you want of me and my bar?"

Z turns to face him and narrows those strange glowing eyes.

"You have a couple of bands playing a show here tomorrow night, yes?"

"Beautifully Sacred and Virulent Disease. Why?"

"I'd like to do an opening set for them."

"An opening set?" The vampire laughs lightly, "You don't strike me as the type to do anything small. Why aren't you asking for the headlining spot?"

Z laughs and turns back out toward the Alaskan darkness.

"You're observant. And I don't want the headlining spot. The show I'll do will be quite memorable regardless of where it is placed in the concert."

The vampire matches the laugh, "You seem quite sure of that."

This is answered by silence as Z pads over to the edge of the roof. A chuckle breaks the stillness and Z casts a grin over his shoulder, "Oh, I'm going to put on a show in your bar the likes of which _this_ planet has never seen."

Maurice flows up beside Zeraphim and peers out into the darkness, wondering what this creature sees in the sky that he doesn't. Tucking sand-colored locks behind his ears, he peers at the profile of the being next to him. Trying to sense the being's core was infuriating; it was like a blank void.

Yet you could _look_ at the man and see power.

Maurice turns to face Z and crosses his arms over his chest.

"So…I'm guessing money isn't a concern of yours?"

Z turns to face him and drops his hood for the first time, revealing a silvery white mane pulled into a tight pony-tail. His skin is bone-white in the moonbeams, the brilliant white-blue glow of his eyes setting it almost alight. The bladed grin comes again.

"No. Doing the show for the fun of it. But charge whatever you wish."

Maurice laughs and turns back out to the open blackness.

"Do you actually _need_ anything from me, other than my stage space?"

Z laughs and looks thoughtful a moment, "Perhaps an introduction to that pretty lady you had on the turntables. And…I wouldn't mind a trip to your basement."

The vampire casts a sharp look at Z, "The basement? Looking for some more aggressive entertainment?" At that, he steps back from Z and faces the stranger. Maurice studies him with a very critical eye.

"Take your shirt off."

Z arches a brow and shrugs his shoulders. The hoodie vanishes in a crackling shower of blue sparks. Left behind is a man 6 and a half feet tall, built like a powerlifter who quit the weights and swam 10 miles a day for 10 years. Not huge but toned to the point of appearing cut from stone. The whiteness of his skin only adds to the effect.

Maurice studies the man before him like a seasoned trainer and can't help but feel like the entire effect is crafted to appear perfect. So perfect it was almost painful to look at, actually.

Z's whispering growl dances along the wind.

"That's the point."

Maurice arches a brow at how readily the stranger reads his thoughts yet is completely blank in return. Finally smirking with a chuckle, he matches the other's grin.

"Try not to kill too many of them, eh?"

Z laughs and spreads bladed hands out, "I'll keep it under 20."

With that, he vanishes from the roof with_ POOF_.

Floating in the air where he stood is a fading after-image of an ornate gothic cross outlined in electric blue. Written across the crossbar in flowing script is a name: Zeraphim.

Maurice smirks again, "Guess that's one way to tell me your name."

With that, he turns and hops off the building, heading inside to find his DJ.

XXXXXXXXXX

Two faintly shimmering blue eyes blink open in the shadow of the stairwell leading into the basement of the building. Zeraphim steps silently away from the wall, shirtless and barefoot. Twitching a pair of baggy black cargo pants on his hips, he scampers the last two steps into a wide space.

A wide space filled with a great many vampires.

Z glances about and tallies the number in at close to a hundred. Most were gathered watching. In the circles they faced into was _what_ they watched.

Two vampires, fighting to the death.

There were at least 5 of these little death circles. Z grins a lethal grin and chuckles quietly, retracting the blades at his fingertips for a 'clean' fight.

_Hehe clean...clean, indeed…_

Scampering on bare feet into the crowd, he starts pushing and shoving through the press of bodies. It was kind of like making one's way through the mosh pit of a heavy metal concert. You hit everyone at once and find the most open space to pass through.

A fist swings toward his face.

Z ducks his head under it and lashes backward with an elbow as he passes. Bone cracks bone, a vampire falls, skull annihilated, into his friends' arms. Ducking away from the altercation, Z reaches toward the shoulders of the two in front of him at the edge of the first circle.

As he grabs the shoulders of two young vampires, he leaps forward and pulls. The force of the pull does two things. It throws him into the circle toward one of the fighters _very_ quickly and lifts the two stunned vamps off their feet, tossing them into the press behind.

Z sails through a graceful but quick arc into the center. The vamp he jumped at heard his approach and spins out of the way of a lazy swipe of Z's left fist. He slaps into the ground and slides, jerking to a stop and spinning to face both fighters.

The bladed grin flashes and Z's whispering multitudes explode in the minds of everyone in the room.

"Who's first? I got a 20 kill limit."

The other circles in the room dissolve almost instantly, the crowd tightening around Z's pit. The one he swung at steps up, eyes low and narrow; _kill_ on his face.

The vampire flows forward and his right fist rockets toward Z's head. Z responds by lifting from his low attack stance and just standing up, into the strike. It hits with all the effectiveness of a human half-heartedly punching a brick wall.

The vampire shakes his hand out and arches a brow at Z.

The whispering again, "Have to swing harder than that."

The youngster takes a few steps back and roars as he lunges forward. The right fist rockets out again, a cross this time. All the force of the guy's centerline shoved into making his fist hit something as hard as absolutely possible.

_Crack_

The kid hits Z's jaw hard enough to pop it out of place and break it. His hand shatters into a mass of broken bones and dripping venom as a result. Grit on the floor lifts from the concussion of the strike and rushes away from Z. The youth stumbles back, clutching his destroyed hand.

Z straightens his jaw, the bone crackling as it re-stitches itself, and pops it back into place, eyes shimmering.

"My turn?"

Z springs to _attack_, throwing his right side forward. His right fist sails forward like a spear launched. It collides with the side of the kid's face, cracking it and punching it inward. Snatching his hand back, Z twists over the _just-slumping_ body and strikes the floor at a sprint toward the other vampire.

The body of the first one hits the floor, skull completely crushed, about the same time as Z foot-blocks a blurry kick from the 2nd youngster. The kid darts around, moving way faster-than-human, throwing a myriad blows at the astral being.

Who just starts blocking and parrying attacks lazily. Not even moving all that fast, his movements weren't blurred at all. A grin crosses his face as he starts walking forward while being attacked. The vampire grows frustrated and arcs both fists at Z's face from over his right shoulder.

His whole left side was so open, it was silly.

Z's right hand lances out and smacks the kid across the face. Not enough to damage him. Just stun. The boy blurs to a halt and shakes his head out.

Probably a bad idea with Z standing in front of you.

The astral being doesn't muss about this time.

Purple-blue tracers shear the air as razor-tipped fingers whistle through it. Z's right hand hacks the vampire off at the hips. Spinning through the attack, a backhand left swipes the head off. The streaks of angry light slice down at shoulder-width, arms spinning off to flop on the concrete.

Z stops and steps forward, shoving the _still-falling _torso to the floor.

He stops. Spins. Stares at the 4 lining up in front of him.

"7? So soon?"

The vampires snarl at his taunting and launch forward, two leaping to land behind and to his sides. The two in front attack in unison; one toward his face and the other toward his legs, trying to remove his kneecaps.

Z leaps forward, twisting into an angle carrying him between the two attacks. Razor tracers rip through the air and maim two vampires.

One loses a hand, the other the arm from the shoulder.

The astral being finishes the spin and tiny blades trill the air, his hands swinging toward his opponents as he turns to face them. The one only missing a hand feints with that arm and swings the other up and under, towards Z's stomach. This doesn't go the way he planned.

Z steps _into_ the feint, the venom-slick stump striking his face weakly. His right fist hammers into the sternum of the undead fighter. It shatters inward and the body flows backward.

Purple-blue streaks take the face of the vampire as he sails away.

The one missing his whole arm was displaying his young age; he was in a very human form of shock. He was trying to put his arm back on, hoping that his undead body would accept the limb back.

This was a very unfortunate mistake.

Mistakes pay large dividends of "Oh fuck, I'm dead." when it comes to fighting Z.

The astral being had already leapt straight upward. Twisting in midair and ignoring completely things like the laws of physics, Z strikes the ceiling like he landed on the floor. Darting forward on all fours, Z jams his claws into the roof above the vampire's head.

Swinging his legs down, he drops behind the newborn. Both hands come down, held together like _praying_ and purple-blue razortips slice death in the air. They shear through the vamp's center, halving him from head to groin.

Springing forward _between_ the 2 halves, Z snatches them in each hand and flings them at the two vampires jumping at him. The astral being scampers along behind the thrown pieces. The vampires both blast chunks of body away and land awkward, looking at a razor-handed death machine crouched and waiting between them.

Blurry-fast, they flow forward to attack.

Z steps backward slowly, dancing between the patterns of attacks. He blocks a kick with one foot to flow with it under a punch, leaning back to watch it sail over his face. Catching another punch from behind with a solid grip to push into the center of the other attacker as he kicks where Z was.

The vampires realize their quarry toys with them and throw more into their attacks.

Z speeds up his defensive dance of blocking and parrying, weaving and pushing away. Without any warning at all, his parries and pushes become strikes. Arms and legs break as they attack, undead bones healing fast.

As he twists himself into being attacked on both sides, his voice explodes throughout the entire room.

"Die."

Both hands slam outward and Z stomps the floor, _BOOM _, cracking the concrete beneath his feet. Palms blast his opponents in the chest. His eyes flare to brilliance and a barely visible wave of blue energy warps out from his open hands, catching the _flying-away_ undead.

Both vampires are incinerated.

Z springs backward, a much older and larger vampire slamming into the cracked floor where he was just standing. The already broken cement shatters further, dust rising as the newcomer stands. He turns slowly to face the astral being. Zeraphim feels waves of negative energy crashing against him and smirks inwardly at the empath's try.

Couldn't blame him.

The new attacker flows forward, even moving as fast as he was. The vampire slams into Z with a blindingly fast and precise pattern of strikes. As soon as Z threw up his first block, the vamp grabs his arm and yanks on his center.

The sudden change in the attack perks Z's attention.

He rocks forward with the pull and snatches his grabbed arm back, yanking the vamp's arm forward. Stepping under it and slamming his back into the other's chest, Z grabs the stunned-limp arm and whips it down.

The undead warrior slams into the concrete with a crack of stone and bone.

Z hovers a bit at the top of his little hop , the force of his throw pushing him upward in the air faintly. Dropping, his right foot comes down like a hammer. The on-assed vamp catches Z's ankle and twists as hard as he can from his weak position.

He fixed said weakness quickly though.

Shrugging his shoulders and throwing the movement into his hips, his feet swing upward. Pushing with his hands next to his head, the vamp back-flips into a kick aimed at the _spiraling-in-air _form of Z.

Zeraphim flips himself over as he twists, bending physics again.

One foot lances out and kicks at the leg swinging up at him. They strike with a _crack_ as the vamp's leg snaps and he's thrown back to the floor. Z pushes off the hit and dives-to-roll. Twisting to his feet, Z turns in time to see the vampire launching off his good leg.

Z darts forward, sliding low under the undead leap. Just as the creature sails over the astral being, Z explodes upward. Slams the vampire into ceiling hard, rattling drinks on the bartop one floor up.

The impact crushes the body of the vampire beyond repair.

Jamming his claws into the roof/floor again, he flings the _almost_ corpse to the floor as he swings his feet up to the ceiling. Springing down from his inverted perch, Z slams razortips into the concrete…through the vampire's neck.

All goes silent.

Z holds himself inverted on one arm, claws buried in concrete and _really dead_ vampire. Dropping to his feet, the astral being turns and looks at the quiet press of undead bodies.

The inner ring of vampires holding Z's pit as a circle all step forward. All of them elder vampires, expensively clad and draped in long coats. Apparently, the commotion caught the attention of some folks upstairs. None of them appear angry or even slightly perturbed. But then…they figured 10 of them, 1 of him. They were figuring they could handle the business the pups plainly couldn't.

This happens when vanity turns deadly.

Z just smirks at them, his voice deafening the room again.

"18? Seems like a good number."

None of the elders deign to answer. Not with words anyway. Shedding their jackets, they all draw swords. Rapiers, mostly. But a big guy in the back had a heavy short-sword, like a gladius. Z glances about, an eyebrow arching and an impish grin on his face.

A black duffel bag hits the floor about 2 feet in front of the astral beingg. The elders pause and glance at each other.

Which was the intended effect.

Z dives forward, rolling over the bag to his feet. A zipper rasps and a 3 foot long double edged straight sword with a strangely glittering black blade is snatched out the bag.

The first attack comes in, lightning fast, an overhead toward the astral being's face.

The black sword flashes upward, knocking the blow away.

Its edges are honed to such sharpness to make the blade whistle faintly as it shears the air. Z darts underneath the deflected strike and lashes out with his blade as he passes. The elder spins and dances away to the right, another swinging at Z from his left.

Z's left hand, full of black bag, swings up at the attacker's face. The bag flies out.

The elder stumbles a bit, the bag vanishing as it hits his face. The instant of confusion was his first and only mistake.

The razor-sword slashes a seam in the ceiling as it arcs downward. Z steps in and hacks off the vamp's left arm, his sword-arm curling back to overhead slash again with the back of the blade. The vamp's right arm goes. The flow of the blade never ceases as it swings up Z's right side, his arm twisting to bring the blade up behind his own head.

Stepping his left foot back, his ducks his neck and the sword trills the air as it slashes out.

An armless vampire is decapitated.

Z doesn't get a reprieve though. As he sweep the elder's head from his neck, the first new attacker running-leapt at him, rapier thrusting down at Z's chest. Z was off-balance to parry the attack.

So he just fell.

The elder sails over Z as he rolls to his back. The black blade slices out parallel to the floor about a foot off the ground. Right through the _just-landed_ vampire's knees. The elder finally makes a noise, crying out faintly as he's hacked off.

He didn't have to worry about it for long though.

Zeraphim, getting away from incoming attacks by 3 of the other elders at once, finishes his roll/attack and bounces to his feet, facing his new opponents. The paraplegic vampire jams his sword into the floor, pulling himself up onto twin stumps with it.

3 elders all blur forward, aiming to skewer Z with their rapiers.

The astral being spins, scoops up, and tosses the legless vampire at the incoming blades. The elder coughs up a mouthful of venom as he's run through by 3 swords simultaneously. Before the attackers react, Z skips forward and snatches the elder's rapier from the floor and flings it at its owner, skewering him a 4th time and binding the blades already in him.

Z leaps up and over them, turning a lazy front-flip, his blade singing out at the skulls of the 3 elders.

Only they aren't there anymore.

Steel screeches and the impaled vampire is ripped to pieces as his brethren blur away, moving _anywhere_ to get out of the way of Z's killing strike.

Z strikes the ground with a thump and is set upon immediately. A maddeningly quick flurry of attacks start in from 3 directions at once, their owners barely visible they move so fast. The black razor-sword goes to work.

Imagine fighting 3 tornadoes at once in a swordfight.

The astral being spins, twists, steps over, hops, rolls, leans away, ducks under, leans into, sways, flows around, and flips occasionally. All the while, his curious whistling blade sings about, catching light in weird ways, crackling as it sends rapiers flying away.

The Blade Storm.

Fine shavings of steel rain to the floor, trampled under barely seen feet, scattering in the wake of the fight.

Z kept his sword impossibly sharp for a reason: the blade had a black diamond core with a titanium wrapping that was banded with diorite. He'd made it of 3 the strongest materials in all of Existence. It was rather heavy, but that really didn't bother Z much. Enough chops, it eventually cuts through anything.

Steel? Ha.

Breaking the blurring, hard to see flow of the fight, Z finally attacks. The black razor shears _through _an overhead rapier slash. The _already-thin_ shaved-down sword snaps with a _CRACK_ and sails across the room.

That's one sword.

The astonished elder's eyes are still going wide when the black razor continues its path through the top half of his face. Most of his brain sails across the room to land near the other part of his sword. Zeraphim pivots on his swing, his off-hand whipping out and slamming the falling elder with half a skull _AWAY. _

The body, spraying venom, sails into the screaming mass of bodies outside the pit and vanishes.

Z's spin carries his blade out to his side in a wicked whistling curve. Snatching it sharply cross-body, the astral being hacks another rapier in two as he drops his stance. Springing forward, the black razor-sword spins into Z's left hand.

He twirls on his toes, his right razor hand lancing out and sweeping the broken-weapon elder's head off. The off-handed sword glints in the light as it spins a tight circle out to Z's left.

The wickedly fast and bladed dance of the dervish.

The singing razor curve shivs cleanly through the last undead master of the 3's sword, coming down toward where Z's back had been _just a second ago_, and the broken blade sails across the room. The tinkling echoes of it snapping are music to the astral being's ears as he finishes his spin.

He releases the last of its energy by blasting the last of the trio in the chest with his empty right fist.

The hand lodges in the undead creature's torso.

_BOOM._

The vampire explodes. A few small bits sail into the crowd. Most of it is vaporized though. Left standing there unperturbed is Z, a little ball of white energy roiling around in his palm. His eyes flash brightly and he snaps his fingers shut, swinging the razor-sword up.

It points _death_ at the remaining 5 elders, staring back down the blade at Z with _death_ in their bloody red eyes.

The big guy with the gladius roars, throws his heavy sword up, and points right back. The last 4 rapiers explode into blurry, distorted-light motion.

Zeraphim flashes a fanged grin at the apparent leader. And vanishes.

He didn't actually vanish. He was simply moving at the speed of light. If they wanted to play hardball, he'd just have to show them that they were still a long way from the major leagues.

One of the interesting effects of light's speed as it crosses time and space is that it's just that: _speedy_. One hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second. If you limit something moving at that speed into a space the size of, say a, parking lot? It would literally _appear_ to be everywhere at once.

But that's only when it slows down enough for you to actually _see_ it.

Stuff that speed into a space as small as Z's little death pit?

Hm.

4 single swordfights simultaneously? Sounds like a good time.

Z meets the first elder while he was still in the air, leaping toward the astral being. The glittering razor-sword flashes, white wispy tracers in the wake of the blade as it shears the air at relativistic speeds.

Slowing faintly, almost visible, he sends alternating cross-body slashes at the vampire, which are desperately parried. The rapier shivers and cracks under the intense velocity. The astral being spins away, breaking light again, darting to the second undead.

Who was still running at the left over image of where Z, less than an instant ago, stood.

The astral being out and out kills this one, the black razor slamming down through the elder's shoulder. Diagonally down across the torso, exiting the opposite hip.

Before the body even starts to slide in half, Z slams into the third elder, also still running at Z's _still-standing-there_ image.

Amazingly, the vampire actually managed a defense of sorts; the ancient undead's senses, honed over hundreds of years of training, allows him to _just know_ he needed to throw himself to the side and lay his blade along his arm.

The glittering black razor shaves about half the width of the thin rapier away.

Zeraphim slows just enough to let the third vampire see his impish and lethal grin.

Light shatters as Z relativistic speed-leaps toward the ceiling and the fourth elder undead, left razor-hand hacking at the third vamp's damaged rapier and shattering it as an afterthought.

The vampire loses part of his arm in the agreement.

He slams the 4th undead monster into the ceiling with enough velocity that his elder body is crushed. The massive energy, generated by immense speed stopping instantly, radiates out through the vampire's body and shatters it in totality. The sweet smelling stench of venom starts dripping out of the cracks of _dead _undead skin.

The lull in Z's lack of speed opens him to the remaining two elders on attack.

Dropping from the ceiling, adhering to gravity's pull, Z swings the destroyed vampire toward the leaping, attacking forms blurring toward him. Both of them had leapt at him, trying to attack in unison.

They made the same mistake their young friends had.

Blasting into light speed again, Z arcs around the two. His speed relative to their speed rendered them almost completely still. Frozen in the act of hacking the venom-slimed body of their dead brother apart to blast through to an image of Zeraphim still falling after throwing their friend.

Z's flight at light's pace draws a black razor blade of glittering murder through the necks of two _moving way too slow _vampires.

Two heads would be swept free of their owners if Z wasn't still moving so fast. The astral being stops stone-still, facing the already-dead bodies of the last 2 elders. His empty, bladed left hand jumps up; electric blue energy dances and crackles along the tips of his claws.

A star-burst of blinding white-blue light blasts outward and reduces the vampires to ash in the blink of an eye.

Z spins with a grin and throws his sword up, pointing razor-edged _death_ at the gladius-wielding beast of a vampire standing, furious, a few yards away.

The massive elder explodes forward, cracking the floor with his launch. Z matches, rocketing forward with a _boom_. Heavy steel screams as Z's black razor blasts downward against the gladius. The vampire is slammed to the floor as Z bounces off the blow, flipping overhead with the momentum. The astral being spirals through the flip to face the elder as he lands.

The huge vampire didn't _fall_ to the ground though; he twists to land in a crouch and was already screaming toward Z, the gladius shearing a sparking, screeching gash in the concrete as he sprints across the room.

Z darts forward, not quite touching the floor, a plume of dust spraying out behind. The razor-sword trills through the air out to his right.

Steel sparks against a massively strong, impossibly sharp blade.

A true sword battle begins.

Z twirls to his right, wicked fast, the sword spearing out toward the elder's head. The gladius twirls up and bats the jab away, sparks flying off the parry. The elder flicks his wrist back, the gladius reversing its direction and whipping back at Z's face. The astral's blade twirls off to the right, Z flowing into a spin off the rebounded attack. A wispy white tracer cuts a wicked curve around Z as he ducks a slice and attacks at the same time.

_CLANG_

The flat of Z's blade slaps the heavy short-sword on its flat, just above the hilt.

The blade sails across the pit, jarred from the elder's iron grip with immense force. Z flows the razor-sword backward off the impact with the gladius. Its glittering edges shear the air as it whips in a circle back toward the elder, trying for a cut at his neck.

But the elder's neck wasn't there anymore.

The vampire had dropped and twisted into a dive _under _the whistling razor. Z's horizontal slash trilled harmlessly through the empty air _above_ the undead's diving-away form.

The vampire strikes the ground, rolling forward and springing to his feet, snatching his blade up.

He turns to face a standing Z, who faces him with a grin. The whispering voices blast across the room.

"Well, well…good reflexes."

The elder master explodes up and forward, the gladius shearing into the ceiling with a shower of orange sparks. Z darts forward along the floor, directly beneath the vampire. A bladed left hand reaches up and snatches the undead violently out of his jump, slamming him down and cracking the stone below. The elder springs back to his feet, facing Z.

Or where Z was. The astral being had flipped up and over the undead. Twisting in the air to land facing the elder's back, the black razor sings out in a wispy slash at the vampire's head.

The gladius slams into the strange glittering black blade.

Both beings lock into a bind, leaning forward into a _screeching-metal_ contest of strength. Muscles strain and ripple as both monsters shove against each other. Flaring white-blue eyes lock with the bloody reds of the vampire. One eyebrow creeps up Z's forehead and a little bladed grin ghosts across his face. The vampire bears down and growls.

The titanium wrapped, diorite-banded diamond blade had notched into the heavy steel of the gladius. Z snatches the short sword out of the elder's hands and slams his own into the floor, the vamp's gladius stuck _on_ Z's blade.

The stunned vampire stumbles forward, having been pulled violently off-balance. Z had slammed the sword down with a quick swap to his left hand; the right hand whipped out in a vicious backfist.

_SNAP_

The elder's jaw snaps and his head almost twists all the way around. The only thing that saved him was spinning and diving away. As the undead twirls through his fall/evasion, he throws a foot at Z's _attacking-again _face.

Z snaps his head back, catching the foot across the nose. The elder master stands and glares at the astral being as his jaw cracks into place with a painful sound. Z twitches his nose and blinks.

The vampire opens his mouth and finally does something other than growl or roar.

"My sword, sir? Or is this to be the uncivilized fisticuffs of those newborns you've slaughtered so efficiently?"

A smirk crosses Z's face and he snatches the black razor, gladius in tow, out of the concrete. His rich baritone "human" voice ripples across the body-littered death pit.

"Respect returned in kind," he snatches the short sword off the black razor and tosses it across to the elder, "wasn't expecting any of you to hit me."

The undead holds his sword up and inspects the damage, arching a brow at Z. "May I ask a last request, sir?"

"Go for it."

"Might I inquire as to what the _fuck_ you are? And…can I fight the claws instead of the sword? You seem limited by the blade. If it's a being's right to choose their end, then I'd choose to see all the tricks my killer has to throw at me."

Z tilts his head at this and something akin to a smile crosses his face.

"If you had stated that in any other way, I'd probably have refused. But…explaining myself fully would take far more time than we've got right now. To sum it up? If Existence had a will, mind, and physical form…it would be me. In fact…it _is_ me, in fact. And my name is Zeraphim."

He punctuates the statement by off-handedly catching the black bag from before as it falls from nowhere. The zipper rasps and the black razor glitters as Z twirls it in front of his torso, shoving the sword into the open bag.

The bag doesn't shear open. Doesn't deform at all. Z just zips it and tosses the seemingly empty bag over his shoulder where it vanishes. His hands drop to either side and razorblades glitter at the tips of his fingers. A dangerously bladed grin crosses his features and the whispering millions of his voice echo about the room.

"So…let's orchestrate your end then, sir."

The vampire cracks a matching grin and spins his sword back behind his arm.

"I won't pretend to understand the enormity of what you just said. But I get the feeling I'm going to enjoy this, no matter how brutally you kill me, whatever you are."

Z's laugher ripples across the space and he nods.

"Then I shall see to it you aren't disappointed."

The full explosive force of Z's voice crackles through the minds and ears of every being in the room, "GO!"

Zeraphim breaks into a sprint toward the elder. The gladius spirals out and up, drawn up into a defensive posture. The astral being's feet bounce off the floor and Z launches himself into a dive at the vampire who skips forward and drops to his knees, heavy short sword cutting straight up at Z's form.

Bladed fingertips grab the blade and Z flips over the point of the sword.

Z twists in mid-flip and strikes the ground facing his opponent. The elder pops to his feet and spins, lashing out with a cut at Z's midriff. As it passes straight on in front of him, he palms down on the flat of the blade and leaps upward.

One foot strikes the blade and pushes him further upward into a forward-moving back-flip. Z tilts his head back and peers at the vampire beneath him as his claws cut purple-blue tracers in the air, screaming down toward the elder's face. The startled vampire yanks his blade back and lays it across his face, closing his eyes against the sparks from Z's claws slamming into the flat of his sword.

Stumbling back a step from the massive impact, he barely has time to whip the gladius to his right to block another wicked-fast swipe of razor-tipped fingers.

_Impossibly fast_ was the only thing that kept repeating in the elder's mind. They were both moving too fast for the human eye to comprehend. Hell, Z was moving so fast that the vampire's eyes weren't even tracking him properly anymore. Pure instinct and reflex blocks, parries, and twists away from strikes coming seemingly from all directions at once. A downward glance tells him that Z's feet aren't actually even touching the concrete floor anymore.

The monster was floating in the air as he attacked.

The vampire finds himself slowly pacing backward as the _blitzkrieg_ beats him this way and that. He ducks slashes toward his face and neck, sliding under one swipe of razor-handed death to hack at his assailant's back.

Or where his back was.

What he swung at instead was all 10 glittering purple-blue razors. Steel screams as adamantine clawfingers hack pieces of metal off his gladius. The sword suddenly becomes wickedly and jaggedly serrated, notched in uneven patterns along the upper length of the blade. The elder snatches his blade back blurry-fast and swings his arm overhead, trying to come down on Z's head.

The now-barbed and hooked gladius warbles the air as it slashes down _through_ Z. Or his image anyway. The wispy after-effect shatters and swirls away in the wind of the sword's passing. The vampire's eyes go wide and he reflexively throws his sword up behind his head just in time to keep from being split in half.

10 razors shower the elder's back with sparks as the bladed hands scream down the side of his sword.

Rocking forward on his toes, the vampire elder lets his knees buckle and he drops. Twisting in his fall, the blade swings a blurry-fast circle out toward where Z's legs should be. The astral creature just hops over the wicked fast attack and kicks out with a vicious right foot. The elder takes an impossibly powerful kick across the face that lays him flat on his back.

But not for long.

Slapping the floor with inhuman strength, the elder back-flips upward and to his feet and lunges forward with a feint toward Z's face. Zeraphim, true to form, steps _into_ the feint and his left hand hacks a few more notches into the gladius.

The elder had planned for that though and yanked the blade back as soon as the monster's claws struck. Blurring into vampiric speed, he throws his lead leg forward and kicks at Z's chest. The astral being takes the kick full in the chest , a _crack_ echoing in the space as his sternum shatters with the force of an ancient and powerful vampire's attack.

Doesn't slow Z for even an instant though.

Bones in the astral being's chest crackle loud enough to be heard as they re-stitch themselves. His hands wrap the elder's _still-striking_ ankle and yank backward with the force of the blow. Zeraphim rolls backward and flings the elder overhead in something similar to the _tomoa-nage_ throw of the Earth art, Judo. The wide-eyed elder goes sailing face-first through the death-pit, trying to twist over and get his feet beneath him.

Not this time.

Z had blinked out before the vampire's foot had left his hands. Blinked back in above the vampire, crouching inverted on the ceiling. As the _sailing-by_ undead passes under him, he explodes downward and slams the elder into the floor. Undead bones crunch as the astral creature bounces off the vampire's back, springing backward to land in a crouch facing his opponent.

The elder pushes himself to his feet, groaning faintly and leaking sweet-smelling venom from a multitude of cracks in his stone-hard skin. He turns slowly, his notched and jagged blade hanging limply at his side. The vampire raises a wary eye to Z and arches an eyebrow.

"So we're coming to the end of this, I expect. " Sickly sweet venom drips from the corner of the vampire's mouth as he speaks.

Z nods faintly, "We are. You have fought exceptionally well, sir. I hold your skills in the utmost regard by now. As such, I offer you a choice."

The elder inclines his head and arches a brow, "And that is?"

"I can dismember you and decapitate you much like this…filth," a dismissive gesture to the bodies and ashes strewn about the room, "or…I can see to it that your death is painless and instant. The choice though…I leave to you, sir. You've earned the right to a respectful death."

The elder laughs and bows faintly, the pain of his healing body ghosting a grimace across his features. The smile he flashes at Z is real enough though.

"Zeraphim, it has been a pleasure. That you gave me a choice in the first place is enough reason to let you do me in as you see most fitting. Oh, and please pardon my rudeness. You've been rather respectful yourself and I've not properly introduced myself. My name is Adrian von Deniker. I've been alive for close to a thousand years. I've seen nearly everything this world has to offer. And it will be a pleasure to go out to a monster so powerful as you. I don't think a warrior could ask for anything better."

Deniker swings his shattered gladius up to point at his assailant and a devilish grin crosses his face, "Let's finish this."

No verbal response was needed.

Zeraphim exploded into absolute motion, the barrier of light's speed left behind like an afterthought. The entire building rattles with the _THUMP_ when the astral being moves to attack. Deniker closes his weary blood red eyes and lets instinct guide him through the oncoming onslaught. A twitch tells him to block right.

_SLAM_

Instinct was right. Z slammed into him and almost knocked him flat.

Flowing with the stumble, Deniker rolls into the immediate attack from the left, bracing his blade against his arm to take the next 10 pointed impact. Snatching his shattered blade upward, the elder vampire drops his stance to deflect screaming razorblades from hacking him in two.

_CRACK. _The sword shivers closer to breaking and the vampire's legs shatter.

Standing back up was hard. The concrete had spider-webbed beneath Deniker when Z struck.

Opening his eyes, the undead throws his blade into a spin around his sides. Trails of seared light burn blue in Z's passage as he spirals around the elder at relativistic speeds, purple-blue tracers of the monster's claws shredding more steel from Deniker's gladius. Twisting off one of the strikes, Deniker works the spin around his back and stops an attack that would have turned his head into something unrecognizable.

Rocking backward off the deflection, Deniker blinks. An image of Z hung there in front of him. But all his senses were screaming at him that Z was behind him. His eyes go wide and he leaps forward, twisting and swinging his shredded, warbling blade up between him and the attack that _had_ to be coming.

Razorhanded death slams into his blade and blows him across the pit. The gladius's core finally shatters.

Z slows to visible coming out of a back-flip off the impact, landing lightly about the same time Deniker strikes the floor and tumbles head-over-heels a few times. The elder lances a hand out and balances his fall, twisting to land on his feet.

Both monsters lock eyes and explode forward in the same instant.

Deniker skips forward and sweeps the destroyed gladius out at Z's legs. Z acts a breath faster and dives over the attack. Instead of shearing into the elder's face with his razortips, the astral being passes _into_ the vampire and vanishes.

Deniker stops and stands. Something like realization crosses his face, as if suddenly a lot of things suddenly made _a lot_ _more_ sense, and he smirks. As if to himself, he mutters "Ha, always wondered about that…"

_BOOM_

The entire room goes white and a thunderous roar rumbles throughout the entire building. The vampires in the crowd surrounding Z's little death pit were saved from being on-assed simply because of how many of them there were. Straining forward, they wait as the smoke clears from where Deniker stood.

Floating in the elder's spot is an energy being. A white-blue core of roiling, living light hovers above the shattered and spider-webbed concrete floor. Gossamer fine white wing-strands reach out to everything in the room, brushing all.

Staring out from a smaller core atop the larger are two pinpricks of black unlight.

They seem to lock eyes with every creature in the now-silent basement. Z's voice, amplified a thousand fold and barely tolerable in intensity even to the vampires, crackles throughout the basement.

"Anyone else? I've still got time for 2 more."

The crowd draws slowly away from the rapidly solidifying "human" form of Zeraphim as the spiderweb-cracks throughout the floor seal themselves, crackling blue-white energy racing in from the edge of the circle towards Z. The glowing gossamer wing-strands pull in close to the astral being and drop clothes on his rebuilt body before they suck up underneath a black hoodie Z stretches his new arms into.

Slipping the hood up over his white mane, Z glances about and smirks at the lack of aggression.

"Guess that sets boundaries."

With that, he vanishes with a _SNAP_, a fading image of his cross floating on the settling air.

XXXXXXXXXX

Maurice sat alone in a corner booth, a glass of blood in ringed fingers. The expression on his face belied his soft features; he looked rather pissed. He knew how many vampires had just died exceptionally violent deaths.

He really didn't give a rat's ass. The sounds rumbling from below the floor moments ago bespoke of massive force being used.

The vampire was irked about property damage.

"Hello again."

Maurice rocks backward in his seat, physically taken aback by the sudden _HOLY SHIT, he's there_ of Z just blinking into reality across the table from him. A lazy smirk and a glass of blood held in bladeless fingers with glowing tips.

The vampire leans across the table and starts to open his mouth to yell. Z's face drops faintly and the strange glowing blue-white eyes narrow at him. Maurice stops. Pauses and remembers that this being was the _source_ of the thunder beneath his feet earlier.

Z just smiles pleasantly at him. Well, pleasant but for the vicious-looking k9s in his mouth. The smooth, warm baritone from before glides across the space, easily audible over the breakstep dance music thumping the dance floor.

"Thank you. For the energetic entertainment downstairs and also for being a good sport. And don't fret; I left the room exactly as it was when I entered. Just…minus a few vampires. 18 to be exact."

Maurice blinks at the blatant mind-read and nods, trying to wipe the dirty look off his face. When he speaks, it's done after a deep calming breath, "Then…you're welcome. I'm glad my establishment suited your fancy."

As he finishes, the vampire lifts his glass in a toast.

Z grins and clinks.

"About my earlier request?"

Maurice nods to the stage across the room at the turntables. The raven-haired beauty from before was still behind the decks. "Go get her. I let her know you were looking for her. We've got a couple other decent DJs in the room, ready to take over when she drops the headphones."

Z listens with one ear and peers at her with a faintly impish grin, "Appreciate it."

"No problem, friend."

The astral being quaffs the rest of the blood and slides the glass across the table as he stands, flowing away and into the crowd.

Zeraphim rocks into the press of vampire bodies…again. His attention was focused completely on _her_ though. She was still running a breakstep track. The astral being narrows his glowing eyes at her and she finally looks up from the mixer, finding his gaze immediately.

They match each other for a grin and she drops into the song, working the EQ and the fader.

Z listens close, wondering what song she has in mind.

The vampire lady starts twisting sound with her EQ knobs and working the right-hand deck to match a beat in her headset. She dances along in time with the end of the breakstep track and Z's ears prick to the sound of Evol Intent's glitchy mids fading into the bottom layers of the music. Grinning like a devil, the lady DJ dances back and forth between the fader and the EQ, pulling the old song out and giving the couples in the room a reason to pair off with "Maybe We'll Dance Tomorrow".

Z's grin widens and he stops as the crowd spaces out around him. He liked her style.

The pretty lady DJ slaps the fader all the way over and snatches the headset off. It's handed off to another vampire that blurs forward _ready to rock out_ and the raven haired beauty glides around the decks, flowing across and leaping off the stage. Blurring forward, she stops in front of Z and peers up, blood red eyes peeking above the tops of a pair of blue lens shades she wasn't wearing a moment ago.

They pause for the barest instant, eyes locked, the music building them into their own private blue-lit world.

Both stepping in time with the glitch drums, they prowl around one another as if both hunting. As the tweaked-out guitar line begins, they both flow forward with the rhythm. She checks him out with a grin.

Z's eyes take in the slender form of the vampire girl, garbed in a similar black hoodie but wearing tight black jeans and sneakers. Raven colored curls cascade out of the hood, framing a strong jaw and high cheekbones with bright, intense eyes. Full lips under a pert nose, blue lenses resting low. He winks at her grin as the guitar fades.

The music explodes them both into blurred motion.

Both of them twist forward and spiral around one another, so much like the fighting Z did before but with such a different intent. The lights over the stage strobe along with the drums, the ultra-bright flashes blue-shifting around the two beings defying the speed at which light reaches the eye.

They brush close, contacting the first time. She locks eyes with him with a faint gasp.

His touch was like lightning had just arced through her.

The world around the two spirals into a blur as they dive toward one another again, blurring with the twisting glitching mid-line, brushing lightly at each pass. Z smiles to himself at how much she enjoys contact with his rather energetic form. Traces of each touch stream out in their wake as small arcs of electricity curling around the two.

The music drops tempo abruptly. Z winks at her and skips backward as the vampire girl rocks forward to press herself against him.

Hopping up, the astral being alights on the edge of the stage and crouches, grinning at her.

She arches a brow at him and leaps atop the stage beside him. He stands and they twist forward around one another again, much closer, dominating the stage. Her hands reach to his face and he leans in, her fingers curling around his neck and pushing the hood off. Her eyes widen the tiniest fraction when the shocking brightness of his hair is struck by the light.

The astral being laces his hands around the vampire lady's waist and starts something like a slow dance. One blurred and twisted by how fast the two move. The girl's desire radiates through Z as a pleasant warmth from her otherwise cold skin.

She lifts to get closer to his face. Another playful wink and he's suddenly across the stage from her, wagging a finger as her as if to say _Come and get it_.

The undead darts forward only to have him spring off the stage. Up and along the sidewall to the fire door. Z pauses there and grins at her, wagging his finger at her again before ducking out the door behind. The girl rockets forward and catches door before it closes, slipping out behind him.

Bursting outside, she casts about the wet Alaskan night.

"Hi."

The word growls across her synapses and she twists backward, dashing back a step as she looks up. A shirtless Zeraphim was already in mid-leap from the roof down at her. She leapt up at him and twisted, turning him beneath her to try to pin him.

As they strike the ground, her astride him, he bucks beneath her and throws her over his head. As she rolls flat to her back, Z turns a lazy flip before landing atop _her_.

"Oh, you like to play games too?"

The words crawl across her mind as whispers. His lips never move except to lean forward and give her the kiss she kept trying for earlier. She moans against his lips and arches her back, pressing against him and reveling in the sensation of his energy dancing through her venom-filled veins.

The kiss is broken and suddenly he's standing above her, grinning down impishly.

"I like games. It's time to play one. That was _tag_. And you're it."

Z rockets across the clearing toward the treeline. The girl springs to her feet and takes off after him. It wasn't very often a man made her hunt for _him_.

She couldn't help but wonder who the _prey_ would be at the end of this night.

* * *

All thanks again to the amazing and brilliant **Ailisraevyn**. Everyone has terrible and dark moments in their lives. Having someone like her in my life for so long has been an enriching experience I could never explain with words.

So I'll endeavor to let my enigmatic monster's tales be my voice.

I appreciate reviews. I love critiques. I do actually pay attention to trends of dislikes about my writing as I refine my style and try to work suggestions in. So feel free to speak up. LOVE answering questions about Z. Explaining his complex ass is a challenge for me -every time- and it helps me expand his abilities and make them as scientifically feasible as possible in this forum. So if ya got god character ideas, hit me up! :D

Tweet me #z3raphim, I don't bite.

Pardon the issues with the links and also with a few extra words as well as a not –quite- enough in certain places. I'll be editing this and cleaning it up further as well as working on the end of chapter 2 of this piece. I just lost my job so my original stories have become a priority for me.

Lastly, but most certainly not least…enjoy Travelers.


	2. Chapter 2: The Creation of Situations

Much love and thanks to **Ailisraevyn** and her awesome tale _**Beautifully Sacred**_**. **She's given me some wonderful opportunities to explore some of my character's various abilities by ok'ing this story. This was going to be a 2 chapter short-story but I couldn't stick the final 2 of the major story scenes on the end of this chapter. Just would have been dirty and I would have felt bad for doing it.

No music for this chapter specifically as I listened to a half-ton of Opeth while writing this. Will be uploading a few tracks to my mp3 streamer when I find a couple that fit this chapter well enough so expect those soon as well as a link when I update.

Thanks also goes out to **rhpsfaerie** for cheering me on and also to my _fuckawesome_ beta Joycie who lets me ramble, brainstorm, and read my work aloud to find flow issues and only gives me shit about only calling her to talk story stuff occasionally. Thanks hun, you rock. The cabin scene in this wouldn't have happened without our brainstorming. Also, some props out to **ocdmess**, because her story _**Hit By Destiny**_ is good stuff.

**DISCLAIMER**: I don't own any of these characters except for Zeraphim and Delilah. The Cullens are property of SM. Garrett and Maurice are the wonderful **Ailisraevyn's** characters. There are a couple of named products in this chapter(and will be net chapter as well) so I have to add that I am in no way a paid advertiser for Takamine or Nokia. I have owned several Nokias; good phones. A friend owns an E-71x and it got picked at random because I was at his house. The Takamine comes from one of my old army buddies who owned an amazing old Takamine that was one of the most amazing acoustics I've ever had the pleasure of laying my hands on.

As always, enjoy Travelers!

**A Different Sort of Concert – Chapter 2: **_**The Creation of Situations

* * *

**_

A gentle rain blows against the mountain, fat droplets slapping into the leaves overhead. Hood up against the downpour, a dark haired beauty pads quietly through the trees. Blue-lensed shades rest tight against her face, blocking the faint sunlight.

She couldn't even remember the last time she'd felt _tired_.

The creature from last night, Zeraphim he'd said, had actually made her _tired_.

Their love-making, if it could be called that, was frenzied and almost violent. She felt as much like she'd just been in a fight as she did having gotten laid. Although…it had been some of the most _unique_ intercourse she could ever remember having. She supposed all of that explained why she felt her body more acutely than she had in ages and _it was_ _sore_!

An ironic smile crept across Delilah's face.

_A vampire griping about feeling alive again?_

Shaking the thought from her mind, like the enigmatic being from last night who'd vanished before dawn, Delilah steps out her pace a bit. She does this thing rather unique to her species: she walks..yet moves forward fast enough as to be blurry to anyone watching. She breaks the tree-line and starts across the open field toward the empty parking lot around the quiet club. About the time she gets clear of the trees, the rain stops.

Delilah pauses and looks to the sky, the clouds that had covered it burning away to release the rays of a cold morning sun.

The sudden glare sets her undead skin alight, like diamonds rolling in the palm of one's hand.

A gentle breeze dances across the clearing, whisperings of a voice traveling within its currents.

"…so pretty."

Delilah looks over her shoulder back at the trees. Nothing there but wet leaves, drying in the sudden sunlight. But she feels eyes, _his eyes_, looking at her. Probably laughing too. Smirking at the thought, the vampire turns back to the building and the smirk disappears.

Sitting atop it was a black cat, looking right at her.

As she tries to focus on its weirdly shifting outline, it gets up and pads out of sight, as if to spite her. Casting an arched brow over her shoulder, Delilah wonders at his games and starts back toward the building.

XXXXXX

Zeraphim grins as the beauty with raven-tresses turns away. She had actually looked right at him when she turned back. She'd have seen him easily except for the bizarre fabric he was wearing.

It bent light so acutely that Z could even move while remaining invisible to the naked eye.

He'd listened to all her thoughts as she walked away from the little glade they'd stayed in the night before. Draped in a cloak made of his strange light-breaker cloth, Zeraphim had trailed along behind her, traveling in the branches above. Only moments of visibility were when he'd leap from tree to tree like he did it every day. The light bending around him moving so fast would blue-shift, pale against the rainstorm he'd summoned up that morning after dawn.

He hadn't felt the need to wake her when he came back from hunting. She'd roughed _him_ up a bit so he _knew_ she was tired.

The astral being had snuck off before sunrise, moving in his curiously silent manner, and gone looking for food. Humans with cores of pure evil were hard to come by in the Alaskan wilderness and he wasn't sure if the vampires would process right as food for his "human" form. Stopping to munch on any of the bodies during the fight last night would have been inconvenient at very best. So he'd settled on a taking down a Kodiak bear. A particularly large one at something over 11 and a half feet in height and close to 1,300 pounds.

_That_ had been an interesting hunt. Humans were typically very predictable. The bear had come near surprising Z with its cunning and sly ways around traps. Between Zeraphim and his little shadow-cat Tien, they played _cat and mouse _for almost an hour with the bear as the sun rose.

Breakfast at sunrise had been a pleasant diversion.

Summoning the rain was little more than a suggestion to the wind. The astral being needed a shower and the wind was only too happy to oblige, pushing a storm-front already on the way toward the mountainside to get there a little sooner.

Doing away with the rain so suddenly was a little more complicated though.

For that, Zeraphim found himself warping reality forcefully. That trick had required him eschewing his physical body for a moment. As Delilah had walked out of the woods, Z closed his eyes and left his body perched there on a tree-branch. Carrying his consciousness upward, the astral being entered the cloudbank and rapidly absorbed the moisture into his own form, making the water _become_ him.

Doing so spread him across the sky above the clearing. He found himself looking at the magnificence of Delilah's brilliant skin from a million water droplets as his eyes.

The sky cleared completely as he fell in the form of the last drops of a dying rainstorm, bright sunlight casting his myriad water-forms into the same glittering radiance as the vampire's diamond skin.

His comment about how pretty her skin was carried on the wind as he snatched his consciousness back into his body. As she locked eyes with Tien, Z had sat and waited to see what her response was. Giving none and walking away, Z just grins at her and turns away himself.

Time to go set up the club.

Z leans forward off the branch and dives silently from his perch. Flickering like a bad digital recording, the astral being blinks out of existence with a whisper.

Blinks back in a few feet above the roof of the club and falls into an invisible, silent crouch. The shifting living shadow-form of Tien scampers up to Zeraphim. Z reaches out invisible fingers and scritches the little shadow-cat's ears, eliciting a purr. A strangely dissonant and hollow purr, like it's echoing from the cat instead of being the true source of the sound. They both sit and wait for the quiet _thunk_ of Delilah walking in the firedoor, Z playing with the little feline-like critter.

"Ready for a task, little sneak?"

The little feline bounces onto Z's shoulder and mews eerily.

"I thought you might like something to do."

The black duffel bag from the night before lands on the roof with a thump.

Tien scampers over to it and does this weird little hopping thing while Z pads over to the bag. Light-broken fingers lift and unzip it, the black duffel appearing to float a few feet above the roof. A small round device is pulled from the vessel and Z drops the bag, the black canvas thumping to the concrete. The little metal ball has what appears an electronic eye on one end and tiny lines all over it, suggesting other features. Z holds it up and looks at Tien, white-blue eyes flaring at he locks minds with the shadow-creature.

"You know what it does?"

Tien responds with a hop and a very un-feline chit noise, the almost-luminescent purple eyes of the cat flashing right back.

"Good. You can get as many as you need from the bag. Place them where they will create the most comprehensive effect throughout the building. You know how to contact me. I'm going to go see if I can learn a little bit more about the bands I'm playing a concert with tonight." Z tosses the little device at Tien as he finishes.

The shadow-cat mews again and catches the little ball with a suddenly much larger mouth, fangs nearly an inch in length and made of thin white light holding it. It stops hopping and prowls across the roof toward the edge.

The sudden sound of a zipper rasps and the hood drops on Z's light-breaker shirt, cold morning sun setting white hair alight. His eyes shimmer against the glare from the roof, looking out at the wet grass of the clearing, nose sniffing quietly at the rain from earlier.

"Wonder if this works…"

Drawing on the moisture he pulled from the sky and dropped on the ground earlier, water particles mist from the air around the astral being's hands. Cupping them, he watches with a smile as it pools in his palms.

Dropping his stance and moving as if underwater, he drags his hands through the rapidly thickening mist around his legs. Flowing his arms downward, his shoves at the bottom of their descent.

Mist shoots at the concrete roof and a pool of water forms as the moisture heats enough to change state. The combination of sharp movement, friction against the air itself, and the sunlight as heated concrete gives Zeraphim an interesting medium for movement.

"Ha."

Swinging both arms back through the now-enveloping cloud of mist, Z lifts his legs upward. Through a bubble of air so thick with water as to actually feel like _moving underwater_. Turning inverted slowly in his little watery world, Z drags his hands through the eddying currents back to his chest and kicks his feet sharply, completing more of his flip to face the ground below.

Both arms shove outward violently, hands cupped to drag the water. Twisting his torso through two backward circles, the astral being's eyes flare brightly and he finishes the spins, throwing his hands downward with immense force. Water rockets out from the currents he built around his arms and slams into the roof. Z, weighing much less than the building does, is tossed _away quickly_ from the roof as a result. The astral being, still wrapped in light-breaker cloth, is lofted into the sky.

As he leaves his water ball behind, his control of it leaves too. It loses form violently and crashes to the concrete, splashing off the side of the roof and spreading quickly across the surface. Tien, still sitting at the edge of the roof with the metal ball in his mouth and watching, hops off the building to get away from the encroaching wave.

A _CRACK_ rips across the landscape, thundering down the mountainside. Like someone out hunting with a heavy caliber rifle.

Looking up, though, told the truth.

A white con-trail streaks southward, toward California, like a supersonic fighter-jet tearing across the sky.

XXXXXX

Maurice sits quietly at the booth from the night before, blood red eyes lingering on the glass left there by the being that showed up last night. Light spills across the dark and quiet bar as the firedoor across the room opens. His DJ, Delilah, steps in and pulls her shades off. They lock eyes and she blurs across the dance-floor to his table. Stepping up to him, her hands come out of her pockets and she directs her big, bright red eyes at the older vampire.

"Morning, boss," comes the greeting from an alto voice, sultry and dark.

Maurice gestures for her to sit with a wave of glittering ringed fingers.

"Good morning, Delilah."

She drops into the seat opposite him, the same place Z had appeared the night before, and leans forward into the gentle light above the table.

"Interesting company you keep, boss. Thanks for the…introduction." Said with a tired smile.

Maurice laughs and grins at her, "Didn't do much sleeping, I'm guessing?"

She laughs and shakes her head, raven curls bouncing lightly around her face.

"No, not much. He's a monster, that one. Who is he?"

Maurice doesn't say anything for a moment. Then one eyebrow creeps up and he blinks at her before speaking.

"He didn't tell you?"

She spreads her hands and shakes her head, "Said his name was Zeraphim."

"Nothing else?"

"Not a peep. Well…there were some other noises…" she trails off with a smirk.

The older vampire picks up the glass on the table in front of him and looks at it, specifically ignoring her remark. He holds it up in front of his face, between them, and takes a deep breath.

"He left this here last night. He had bare fingertips when there weren't blades on them. I had this dusted and he doesn't _have_ fingerprints. Just smudges on the glass." He sets it down and looks at her.

At that moment, a quiet rumble like thunder shakes the building softly. Seconds later, the muted _crack_ of a high velocity rifle round sounds from out in the woods somewhere.

Both vampires pause and look at each other for a second. Maurice opens his mouth to speak but is cut off by Delilah.

"I assumed you knew him so I didn't ask questions." She looks up, "Wasn't exactly that kind of situation, you know." Delilah narrows her eyes at him.

Maurice shrugs, "No, I guess not. He showed up out of nowhere, made me an offer I couldn't really say no to, and asked me to introduce you. Then he mauled ten Elders, at least two of which were Volturi. He killed Adrian von Deniker."

Delilah narrows her eyes sharply at Maurice, "When?"

"Last night, during your set."

She blinks in vague shock.

"I really didn't have any idea. He was so intensely _there_, right in my face. Even when he ran away from me."

"Ran away from you?"

"Yeah. We played tag for the better part of an hour before he came out of nowhere and took me down. From there…well." She snorts and tries to hide a grin, shrugging.

Maurice smirks, "So he likes to play games then."

"Yeah. And he's terrifyingly good at them. He likes making you think you're in control and then snatching it violently from you. Also making you look one way while he goes the other."

Maurice finally breaks the flow of the chat and leans back in his seat. His eyes search out one of his bartends and he waves him over. A second later, the vampire _flowing-forward_ to there at the table in a blink, the owner of the bar locks the man with a very direct gaze.

"Due bicchieri. Portami uno dei telefoni personalizzati."

The vampire barkeep blurred off and Maurice looks back at the pretty young lady before him.

"Thank you for the observations, D."

The barkeep blurs back up to the table and two glasses of warm human blood slide in front of the pair of vampires. A black Nokia E-71x is held out to Maurice's waiting hand. He sets it on the table and waves the barkeep off with a smile, his eyes narrowing at Delilah.

"Enjoy a small breakfast then. I have a call to make."

His glass of blood is held up in ringed fingers.

Glasses clink and they both drink, Delilah sipping her's and Maurice quaffing his whole serving in a single motion. The empty vessel thunks on the wooden tabletop and the older vampire rises to his feet, padding away from the table.

As he shoulders out the firedoor, he taps a number into the phone with one hand as he slips a pair of Ray-bans on against the near-noon sun.

XXXXXX

Somewhere in southern Canada, a full-size RV rolls along a territorial highway, black and sleek in the near-noon sun. Inside the steel and fibre-glass beast sat 8 vampires. 8 vampires possessed of both an exceptional diet and exceptional skills & talents. Between them all was an empath of acute skill, a seer, a thought-listener, an advanced shield, and a decider. After them came a young man of immense strength, and 4 beings of pure heart.

One of these was a fairly aged & learned undead named Carlisle.

His cell phone chirps quietly within the din of acoustic guitar, video games, and conversation in the main cabin of the RV.

Leaning away from Esme, he answers it shortly.

"Carlisle, go."

"It's Maurice, old friend."

"Afternoon, old man. Last minute changes to the plan?"

"Actually…yes."

Carlisle loses his air of calm faintly, his brow furrowing.

"What news?"

"Something showed up last night and 'acquired' an opening spot for your gig."

Carlisle's eyes dart to Edward, the mind-reader of the group; he wasn't sure he wanted anyone else to know what was going on until he could explain things correctly. Shielding himself from the boy was paramount.

"Acquired? How do you mean?"

"He made me an offer I couldn't legitimately say no to."

"So…did he say anything of his intent?"

"Only that it will be a show like _this_ planet has never seen. He stressed that."

Carlisle arches an eyebrow and flashes a faint smile at Esme, who'd sensed stress in her mate and also that he was hiding. True to her form, she pads over to where Emmett and Edward sit playing a fighting game on one of the expansive 37" plasma screens across the cabin. Carlisle smiles inwardly at his mate's attempts to ensure Edward's distraction; she'd read his vague expressions well enough to try to _help_ him hide his thoughts.

Such a wonderful quality in a mate.

Turning faintly in his seat, he puts his back at the slightest angle to the rest of the cabin and turns his face to hide the call.

"This planet?"

"Yes. There's much more. He killed von Deniker."

Carlisle's amber eyes go wide.

"Deniker? He killed Adrian?"

"Yes. Apparently, he did so in flashy fashion at Deniker's request."

"What?"

Maurice explains the events of the evening before as he had gathered from the hundred or so witnesses of the fight in his basement. Touched on the creature's apparent ability to do whatever it wants with reality. Explained, as well as possible, the creature's ability to teleport itself during a battle. Ended it by going over the description he'd pieced together about the being's energy form, it's 'human' body, and Deniker's death. Much of the conversation between Deniker and the being had come to him verbatim, many of the newborns in the basement last night showing exceptional talent at remembering things under duress.

When he stops talking, a Carlisle with his face in a blank mask takes a deep breath and tilts his head, asking the first and foremost question in his mind.

"So…what is he then, old man?"

"I don't know. He never said. Made a brief mention of being able to see all of this 'pocket of reality' in the sky. If I had to make a wild guess, I'd call him a demi-god but I don't quite know if I have the right definition of that term to describe him."

"A demi-god?"

"Exactly…I'm not entirely sure what to make of this situation, old friend. "

"So what do you think we should do?"

Maurice laughs on the other end of the line.

"Play the show, ya daft bastard."

Carlisle's mask breaks and he grins.

"You stand to make some money off this, greedy old man?"

"A bit, perhaps. He didn't want any of the proceeds."

Carlisle furrows a brow.

"Hm. So he's really doing the show just to do the show?"

Maurice laughs again, quieter this time.

"I can't make that assessment accurately. From what I have been told, the creature likes to play games with people. Apparently, he's quite good at it too."

"Well…where is he now?"

"Don't know. He took off this morning before dawn. If you want my opinion and best guess, I'd almost be willing to put money down that you guys run into him on the drive up."

Carlisle purses his lips.

"Hm. Ok then. Well, I appreciate the call, old friend."

"Not a problem."

Carlisle almost hangs up then remembers, "Oh, one last thing."

"Zeraphim. Said his name was Zeraphim."

Carlisle smiles at his friend's keen mind.

"Thanks again."

Carlisle ends the call and turns to face to room, locking eyes with Esme, a faint smile on his face.

Just as he opens his mouth to speak, the bus starts slowing down.

XXXXXX

Garrett, the Family's vampiric decider and one half of Beautifully Sacred, sits kicked back in the passenger seat, just opposite the driver's seat and Rosalie. Laid across his chest is an old Takamine acoustic, sunlight dancing across the wood finish as Rose cruises into the south-western edge of Canada.

The older of the two vampires was working through a chord progression, breaking them up and turning it into a scale-style pattern. He'd been progressively changing the chord pattern for about the last two hours while Rose drove in silence. Garrett respected her desire for solitude so he didn't speak; she respected his need to do something constructive with the hours of endless road by not griping about his never-ceasing meanderings on the strings.

Breaking the near-silence, he looks over at her and speaks for the first time in what feels like hours.

"Mind if I ask you a question, Rosalie?"

She smiles against the sun, skin glittering, and looks over at him briefly.  
"You can call me Rose. And sure."

Garrett smiles and nods, "Is there any reason you don't play anything?"

She glances at him and shrugs, "Never got into it really. I feel like I might be interested in it if there were some other types of musical influence around me. I like the music for both the bands in the Family but I don't really feel a drive to try and write or play music like that." She grins at him, "No offense."

He just grins right back, "None taken. So…what types of music have you ever felt the desire to write or play?"

She doesn't answer immediately and Garrett reaches out for her core. Feels her weighing decisions; whether to answer or not, different genres of music, some very surprising. He doesn't push at any of her decisions, letting the conversation build itself naturally.

After a moment, she answers.

"Well…the reason I haven't said anything about your guitar lines over there is because I was enjoying them. I've always been more inclined toward classical music-"

"Like Bach or Mozart?"

She smirks at him and nods, "Yes. Bach was insane and so is his music. But I like it. It's extremely complicated and not all of it truly makes sense, but that's really part of the beauty of it, I think. How did you know by the way? Aside from them being rather common names?" This last is delivered with a pointed but playful look.

The old ex-military man laughs and leans forward, resting his chin on the body of the guitar.

"A guess and a peek. S'what I do." Said with a smile reeking of irony.

A cell phone chirps, Carlisle's, back in the cabin behind them. Both glance back briefly and shrug it off. Rosalie looks over at Garrett and inclines her head.

"Play something like before but darker?"

He arches a brow at her and decides not to peek at what she had in mind and goes with his instincts instead.

"Yes, ma'am. Pardon a moment."

He leans forward and drops the tuning on the guitar, fretting to a C and dropping his low string to it. Tuning across the neck from that, he drops the low string again to a B. Strumming once to tweak it, he starts finger-picking a gentle but very dark pattern. After he works further into it and begins evolving it, he reaches out to her core while his mind wanders within his music. Feels her deciding whether or not to say something to the effect of him making a good call.

Feels her decide not to.

Garrett glances over at her; she had a half-smirk on her face.

The time passed in Garrett & Rosalie's pleasant near-silence, the only real noise at the front of the bus the hum of the road and the haunting piece he was building on his guitar. Somewhere along the line, Route-1 turned into the 97 and Rose turns them north at a little town called Clinton.

As they get back out onto the open road and into empty wilderness, they come across a truck stopped on the shoulder.

Laying on the open tailgate, a man dressed in black.

He was looking right at them, like he was interested in _anyone_ driving by and hoping they'd stop. Rose glances at Garrett, who was simply looking right back at the man while still playing guitar. She breaks the quiet.

"What's up with this guy? Shitty place to have your truck break down."

Garrett cracks a grin and laughs quietly as he puts his guitar away, stowing it behind his seat.

"Good point. Wonder how long he's been sitting here. He looks really bored."

Rose laughs and nods, "Yeah, he does."

Rose had started slowing down as she spoke. Pulling even with the guy and the truck, they get a better look at the two. The truck was an old Chevy, a dark charcoal gray with all-terrain tires on it. The hood was open, but resting almost closed. As the guy stood up, he revealed a tall and powerful frame clothed in mostly black. Dark cargo pants and boots, a white t-shirt with a black hooded vest. The hood was up. The guy had black engine gunk on his fingers and a smear of it over his left cheek, accenting the white stubble of facial hair. His arms were cut and toned and all his skin was pale in the sun.

Rose stops the bus and Garrett rolls his window down, leaning forward and down to look the man in the eye. He's greeted by a rough baritone, speaking with a grin.

"Top o' the morning to you."

The stranger points at the _just-now_ noon sun and flashes a brilliant smile, eyes twinkling in the shadows under his hood.

Garrett laughs and nods, "To you too, friend. You stuck?"

The guy laughs, a big and jolly laugh, and nods, still grinning.

"Don't suppose the broke-down truck was any clue, eh?"

Garrett responds with another laugh and nod.

"Where ya headed to?"

"Alaska."

Garrett glances at Rose and turns back, "Anywhere in particular?"

Hood shakes no, "Anywhere in particular. Really anywhere but where the hell I was." He says with a quirky grin.

Garrett smiles ruefully, "Well, that is a shitty trip to have your truck break down on, friend. We're headed that way."

"If ya got the space for one more, I'd appreciate the ride."

Garrett glances back over at Rose, who shrugs and nods. Turns back and clicks the door open. Swinging it wide, he gestures up the steps.

"All aboard for the Great White North." Delivered with a cocky grin.

The stranger laughs and bounces up the steps like he has springs in his feet. Sliding smoothly between the two vampires, the newcomer stops and waits. Garrett shuts the door and steps up to the man. They both lock eyes and the vampire feels the faintest of stirrings in his mind, like when Edward would try to read him while he was under Bella's shield. He smiles and breaks the silence.

"Guess I'll take you back and introduce you to your new riding buddies."

The stranger nods and smiles back, "Sounds like a good time."

They do a very peculiar shuffle, specific to men who've been in the military and have had to operate in tight places with lots of people for extended periods of time, and switch places in the tiny hallway leading back to the main cabin. Garrett leads the way into the room, the stranger padding near-silent behind him.

They are greeted by a standing Carlisle, looking at them both.

Garrett draws up short as the 8 sets of eyes in the space all fall on him and his new friend.

After a moment of Garrett feeling somewhat silly and the stranger hiding a grin in the darkness under his hood, Carlisle hacks through the sudden tension in the air.

"I see we have company. Garrett?"

Garrett grins at Carlisle's adroit retrieval of the moment and steps aside, motioning for the stranger to step forward. As he does, twinkling blue eyes take in the people around the room from within the hood, glittering in the shadows.

When his eyes come to rest on Carlisle, the vampire narrows his gaze sharply. The rest of the Family tenses faintly in response. The stranger's grin just deepens a bit. His rough baritone crackles across the space.

"Just got off the phone with Maurice, eh?" Said with a cocky and almost dangerous grin.

Carlisle narrows his eyes and tilts his head, "You're him." A statement, not a question.

The man nods briefly.

"I am. You should call me Z, instead." The grin turns to a smile.

Esme's voice breaks the exchange, "Carlisle? You know him?"

The oldest vampire in the RV stops and blinks at his wife and then drops his face into his palm, laughing quietly. Emmett and Edward both stand, the game forgotten, and look at both their father and the newcomer with expressions of apprehension. Esme steps up to her mate and lays a hand on his arm, Carlisle looking up finally and grinning at the newcomer.

Who steps forward and puts a hand out, the tips of his fingers glowing a very faint blue-purple.

Carlisle matches him and steps into the handshake.

"I'd tell you my name but I suspect you already know it."

The man nods and grins again, stepping back and spreading his hands.

"You would be correct, sir."

"Then I suppose it shouldn't surprise me so much that you're standing here on my tour bus. I heard you like to play games." The vampire smiles ironically.

The stranger grins again, "Games? Always. And I suppose I could be polite and explain the questions that are screaming in everyone's mind."

Carlisle laughs and nods, "You could."

Edward finally shatters the mood, stepping forward into the circle and breaking into the conversation with an angry look.

"What's this all about? I can't hear _anyone's_ thoughts. Who is this man? Why can't I hear anyone?"

This finally breaks Edward's mate, Bella, from her reverie at the table and her notepad. Her brow furrows and she casts about the room. "What the? My shields are gone."

Garrett starts trying to peer at the cores of the people in the room and finds nothing but a blank, empty void. Alice makes a silly noise and hops up from the end of the sofa Esme was seated on. This raises a vexed looking Jasper from the end of the sofa Edward & Emmett had been gaming on. The young girl Bree hides behind Emmett, her eyes wide and full of the stranger.

Just as Edward starts to step toward the man, he holds up a finger. Blue eyes glitter dangerously beneath his hood.

"A moment. I said I would explain and I will. Garrett?"

Garrett turns and faces the stranger, "Yes?"

"May I see your acoustic?"

Garrett arches a brow and blinks once…then covers the 3 strides to the Takemine, scoops it up, and hands it to the man. Who takes it with a smile, "Thank you."

The man turns and drops in the center of the cabin floor, legs folding beneath. With a shrug of his shoulders and a twitch of his head, the hood falls and reveals a shockingly white pony-tail pulled tight. The blue eyes from before start glowing gently under the pale white light of the overheads.

"My name is Zeraphim."

His fingers drop to the strings and start dancing, something low and dark vibrating from the old wood casing of the guitar.

"The loss of powers is what I would term 'absorption'. When first confronted with new forms of energy, I feel compelled by the nature built into me to absorb a bit of it for study and learning."

Zeraphim stops speaking and drops his face, rocking very faintly as he plays through a particular note progression. When he looks up, the Family had all reseated themselves. After waiting for just a moment _too _long, no one speaks a word and Z laughs.

"Well, since no one seems inclined to speak, I'll ask your questions for you."

He pauses and doesn't receive any response, except for a general narrowing of the eyes.

"Alice, you're wondering what I am exactly?"

Alice arches a delicate eyebrow but it's Edward who speaks.

"Excuse me…Zeraphim. Or whoever you are, whatever you are. Why are you here?"

Z arches a brow and focuses on Edward.

"I'm opening for your show tonight." Said with a pleasant smile.

Eyes widen around the room and Edward leans forward in his seat.

"Opening for us? Since when?"

"Since I booked it with Maurice last night." Still the same pleasant smile.

Edward leans back, looking a little shocked. He looks at Carlisle.  
"Was that the phone call you were going to tell us about?"

Carlisle and Esme both look at their son.

"Yes, it was. But…I've a feeling our new friend here is about to explain-"

Edward cuts him off and turns back to Z, "Why can't I use my powers again? I'm not entirely sure I trust you to play a show with us. You come on our tour bus and somehow turn off all of our talents?"

Z blinks and glances around the room. His eyes widen a bit and he smiles ruefully.

"Mi dispiaci. Is that better?"

Edward suddenly pinches the bridge of his nose and leans forward a bit. A similar effect ripples throughout the room as the Family suddenly finds themselves re-presented with an abundance of information they'd all grown used to feeling.

His true voice slithers across the synapses of the vampires in the room, a myriad million voices whispering at once. A growling undertone seems to radiate from the body of the guitar, almost as if it spoke with the astral being.

"I assume you all can use your senses properly again?"

Met with nods of acknowledgement.

He moves on, playing his guitar while his voice dances in their minds.

"Good. Alice, I was about to answer your question. I am what you could call a universal being."

Alice narrows her eyes and tilts her head, "What does that mean?"

"The universe itself is my playground. Or rather..the universes. For there are a great, great many of them."

"So you're a god?"

Z stops playing the guitar and looks at her, lips pursed.

"Not sure I'd go by that but…yeah, I guess."

The bright eyed vampire laughs and shakes her head at him.

"Well…what is it that you do that you don't want to be called a god?"

At that, Z smiles brightly.

"It's my job to ensure that everything within all of Existence remains nice and even. Balanced, if you will. So…call me the Will of Existence then."

She nods and smiles at him, then scoots back on the seat as if to say _I'm done._

He matches her smile and looks next to Esme Cullen, who leaned forward as her daughter leaned back. Her pleasant alto lilts across the cabin to Z.

"So Zeraphim…why then do you want to do a show with our Family?"

Z shrugs, a little half-smile resting on his face.

"I came at the behest of my boss. I rarely get answers when I question his motives and besides, the things he sends me to do usually wind up being _great_ fun."

She tilts her head at him, "Your boss?"

The curious shimmering blues seem to twinkle playfully as he grins.

"Ah, can't talk too much about him, I'm afraid."

Esme blinks, looks over her shoulder at Carlisle then smiles and nods at Z as she sits back.

Z drops back into doodling with the acoustic. A faint rustling causes him to turn and look as Bella leans forward, speaking to him for the first time.

"Um…So I get that you're here to do a concert. And that you are something _way_ out of this world. But what I'm still missing is…why are you here on the tour bus?" She finishes by sweeping a lock of hair behind her ear.

Zeraphim stops playing and smiles, "I _had_ to have some face-to-face time with the bands I'm to play a show with. I have to understand the energies I will be interacting with."

Bella smiles and looks down at her notepad, laughing faintly, "For a deity-being, you seem awfully subject to curiosity."

At this, Z stops and narrows his shimmering eyes at the young vampire. Then he smiles and laughs, "That, I am. Such is the nature of having power; it creates a drive to use it."

Bella looks up at him and laughs, arching an eyebrow, "And how exactly do you plan to use that power tonight during the show, mister?"

The astral being just grins and winks at her.

"Trade secret."

Bella leans back and looks at the stranger. Z stands in one fluid movement, rising from his ankles. He holds the guitar out to Garrett, "Thank you, sir."

Garrett cocks an eyebrow at him, taking the acoustic.

"Welcome, mate."

At that, Garrett steps back into the front of the cabin to put the instrument away and to talk to Rose. Z turns to the room and spreads his hands, "Pardon a moment, please."

The astral being shrugs his shoulders and twitches his head again. The pony-tail drops free, his hair falling forward to drape his angular features and curiously shimmering eyes with shining white strands. A thin shower of white-blue sparks cascades down his form, the vest lengthening to the floor and flashing from black to white along with his pants. The little t-shirt darkens to black. Sparks sputter out as they reach the carpet, his boots disappearing and leaving him barefoot.

A being now clad in shimmering white turns to the room and smiles.

"Thank you."

Amber eyes around the room were wide. Alice leans forward with a bright grin.

"_That_ is a really neat trick."

Z grins and nods his head in a bow. His glimmering eyes fall on Jasper, who looked as if he was about to stand. "Yes?"

The blonde haired vampire leans forward and speaks with his curious drawl.

"You said before…something about absorption for study. What did you mean? Can you interact with our talents?"

Zeraphim nods and smiles again, "Yes. Now that I've had a moment to process them while we spoke, I can direct energy to them for the purposes of both amplification and negation. I can also simulate similar effects through my own techniques for energy manipulation."

Jasper's eyes go distant for a moment as he works the idea through his mind. Z tilts his head at him. "I could show you an example, if you all would permit?" He glances at the rest of the Family, who blink at one another and nod vaguely.

Jasper nods and stands, "So…show me then."

Z just grins and waves a hand at Edward, "Jasper, make him mad."

Jasper nods and arches a brow, looking at a confused Edward. Just as the dark-haired vampire begins to speak, a wave a rage crashes him into him so powerfully that he almost leaps across the cabin at Z before he realizes it. Stopping himself, his jaws grind and he feels like there is too much purified anger burning in his center.

Z's voice rattles around the cabin, the growl louder than before and the whispers echoing from the corners of the space.

"Stop."

Jasper finds himself completely blank of any emotion, unable to project or feel anything externally. Edward feels much the same and the tremors of adrenal burn-off start. Suddenly, an intense wave of calm and cool soothing washes over him and he looks up at its source; Z, holding a hand with strangely glowing fingertips out toward him.

Both Edward and Jasper's eyes go wide.

Z grins and drops his hand, "Sufficient?"

Jasper nods and sits down.

"Thank you, sir."

Edward steps forward though, "Why was I the guinea pig?"

Z grins again, eyes twinkling playfully.

"You were the first one to get aggressive."

The vampire's mouth opens to speak and then he stops. Smiles ruefully at himself and sits back down. As he sits down, Z takes a step back. He looks for all the world as if something had slipped his mind and just re-occurred to him. Glimmering blue-white eyes seek out the young Bree, huddled next to Emmett. She tries to hide further under Emmett's arm as Z's attention falls on her.

Dropping again to the floor, Z smiles brightly at the young girl.

"So…of all the people in the room, the youngest of all of you is the one who first thought 'Monster' when you saw me."

Bree's eyes widen and she hops forward.

"You heard that?"

"Of course I did." White hair sways in the light as he shrugs, his smile softening.

She furrows a brow at him and tilts her head.  
"Do you hear thoughts like Edward does?"

"Yes, I do. I also see everything."

"What does it look like?"

Z's smile turns to a grin and he spreads his hands.

"Hmm…would you like to see?"

Bree stands and walks over to Z, a short girl looking down at him. She holds her hand out.

The astral being touches her palm with the tip of a finger.

Bree gasps and glances around the room, blinking wide eyes.

"So many colors! Everyone has their own particular colors too."

Z laughs a bit, "Neat, huh?"

The girl breaks the contact by moving her hand and she narrows her eyes at him.

"You really _can_ hear everything. I could even hear the music in Bella and Edward's heads. And-"

Z grins and puts a finger to his smiling lips, eyes twinkling.

Bree grins, nods, and sticks her hand out to shake.

Z obliges her and winks.

The young vampire runs back across the room and sits down.

Z shifts back around to face Bella, "Miss Swan?"

Dark hair swings around as she glances up quickly from her notepad.

"Yes, Mister Zeraphim?" She smirks just a hair.

A matching smirk crosses his face and a little folded piece of paper appears in his hand. Glancing past it at her, he inclines his head and flips it toward her. The paper sails into the air, spiraling up and backward, _away_ from its target. Abruptly, it vanishes.

Everyone blinks and glances around.

The slip of paper tumbles out of the air from over Bella's head, landing on her notepad.

Z's smooth baritone slides across the cabin to her as the astral being stands.

"A couple of song ideas for the show tonight. Still some hours before Alaska so give it some thought and discuss what you will. I have to go talk to my…band."

This last is said with a faint smirk. Z begins to turn, as if to leave, but Carlisle breaks him off.

"I heard you killed Deniker."

At this, the astral being pauses with his back to the cabin. Shimmering blue-whites peer at the elder over a shoulder.

"Yes. Yes, I did. That's one I wish I'd met under different circumstances."

"So it was simply…wrong time, wrong place?"

Z nods once, "Purely. I understand he was your friend. Errant thought from Maurice last night."

"He was. A long time ago. He fight well? He was always a bit better with a sword than I was."

"He was an exceptional combatant."

Carlisle nods and purses his lips.

"That's good then. As long as he went out well."

Z chuckles with a smile, "That, he did. He requested a show so I would have been remiss not to deliver one."

Carlisle laughs and nods. "Thank you for the chat, friend."

"Thanks, all of you, for the listening. And thank you ahead of time for the concert tonight."

Carlisle nods a last time. "I, personally, look forward to it. Safe travels."

"You, as well."

With that, Z turns and scampers on bare feet into the front of the RV with Rose and Garrett.

"Excuse me, friends, mind opening the door?"

Both the vampires start at his blindingly white change of appearance. Garrett leans forward in his seat and Rose double-takes at Z a few times.

"Goin' somewhere?" Garrett asks with a laugh.

Z grins big, "Yup. I'll see you folks at the club."

"Nice talking to you." Garrett smiles.

"A pleasure here." Z smiles right back.

Garrett leans over and kicks the switch to manual open the door since the normal button wouldn't work while the bus was moving. Certainly not when it was cruising at 85 miles an hour along a lonely Canadian highway.

Wind whips around the front of the bus and Z hops down to the bottom step. Glancing out, hair and vest flailing wildly, Z looks at the front of the bus. Grabbing a railing inside the door and the top of the cab, he swings his legs up and out.

Garrett and Rose both arch an eyebrow, thinking that the astral being doesn't seem to care much for physics.

Twisting white-clad legs, Zeraphim throws his feet around toward the windshield. His torso follows and the wind curving around the RV pushes him against the glass. Tensing vaguely against it, Z explodes off of it. It spiderwebs instantly. Almost as instantly, a ripple of blue-purple light seals the cracks like they were never there.

Z, on the other hand, struck the road feet-first. And kept running. One leap, sailing through the air faster than Rose was driving. As soon as he strikes the ground, he leaps a second time.

At the top of his jump, he vanishes with a _CRACK_.

A white-blue streak spirals into the early afternoon sky toward the northwest.

Floating in the air long enough for Rose to plunge through it, the image of an ornate gothic cross twists, smoke-like, on the gentle breeze.

XXXXXX

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w00t for jumping out of moving vehicles! LOL :D


	3. Chapter 3: The Performers

HOLY SHIT, it's been a damn long time since I updated. Sorry about that. Life has dealt me some very strange hands over the last 10 months or so. Writing has been hit & miss for awhile, not for lack of stories to tell but for lack of somewhere I felt stable enough to sit down and get some good words done.

This chapter was originally intended to be the final installation of this story and tell the story of the concert for which this tale is named. When I opened the file back up to work on it, I realized I'd banged out 15 pages of of a very peculiar introduction a bunch of new characters that I will likely be using in some of my other stories later on down the line. At any rate, I didn't feel like it would be right for me to do this scene and the concert scene in the same chapter. Felt it would diminish both scenes and that's just plain wrong! :D

So...I suggest finding some good up-tempo music to listen to and get a cool drink.

Enjoy!

* * *

**A Different Sort of Concert – Chapter 3: **_**The Performers**_

The sun rides low in the western sky over the vampire nightclub _La Sangue Cantanta_. Down the mountain, sitting astride the road curving through the foothills at its base is a tiny little town barely worth the name it bears on a map. On the back side of the town, a small warehouse sits shuttered, boarded, and vacant looking.

It didn't _sound_ vacant though.

By the sound of the aggressive guitars and drums vibrating the walls, it was plainly occupied by a band; playing like they were putting on a show. Heavy bass and deep synths rattle the boards over the warehouse windows.

Zeraphim had expected no less of his crew.

The astral being, back in his black vest and cargo pants with faintly glowing eyes, pads quietly up to the sliding doors on the front of the building. A heavy chain with an equally heavy padlock holds the doors secure while boards up and down the seam bind it shut.

Z glances over his shoulder toward the dusk-reddened sun.

Hands with weirdly glowing fingertips whip violently out to his sides.

Boards shatter into splinters, the chain and padlock explode into shrapnel, and the doors slam open with a _CLANG_. The music stops abruptly as Z steps through the massive doorway. His eyes flare into white-blue brilliance as he looks up at his motley collection of musicians.

The door behind flickers back into place like a bad digital recording, unmarred. Even the boards, lock, and chain were back in place without.

The astral being's whispering millions for a voice echo about the vast room.

"Hey guys."

Five sets of eyes, a scattering of different colors, all focus on him. All of the men bear a faint resemblance to the astral being. One of them steps forward, black orbs for eyes with a clock-face patterned across them, bald head, dark skin, and clad in a simple white t-shirt with gray jeans. He held a microphone but speaks without it, a rough British cant to a deep baritone voice.

"You _always_ have to make a grand entrance, boss?"

Z glances back over his shoulder at the repaired door behind and shrugs. Speaks normally this time. "I didn't think it was _that_ grand."

The band laughs as Z crosses the space and starts greeting them, shaking hands as if they hadn't seen each other in a long time. Which wasn't entirely accurate; he'd collected them from a small planet elsewhere within Existence, a few pockets of reality away, and deposited them all here that afternoon after speaking to the Family. He'd left almost immediately though and headed out to check on Tien, his shadow-cat familiar. Much of the remainder of the afternoon had been spent being invisible within his light-breaker cloak, following Tien around the interior of the nightclub as the little shadowy feline showed him where it had placed all of Z's holo-projectors.

That had left his band alone to set up with their practice kit and jam.

Z's band, like himself, was something of an anomaly.

There was a reason they all looked faintly like him; each had started life as a 'copy' of Zeraphim. Essentially human versions of the body he wore, Z had made them all for the sole purpose of having and maintaining a band that tromped about the universes playing good music.

Too many years ago to bother counting, Z had spawned them all and explained to them a simple task for the first 25 years of their lives; learn to play their given instruments. Master them, make them extensions of the self. Then, at the appointed date, at the appointed hour, be ready to leave.

And so they had.

All 5 members had been dispersed throughout various parts of Existence and lived itinerant lives, the calling of the professional musician. During their time apart, the appearances they were created with-strong, powerful body, white hair, keen blue eyes—had all been altered and personalized as the creatures had developed individuality. Each picked himself a name, one better than the simple numbers that Z had left them all with.

The one that had stepped forward to speak to Z with the clockface across his eyes had named himself Chrono. He was, for obvious reasons, the band's time-keeper and bass player. He also handled vocals when they performed without the astral being as the frontman.

Holding Chrono's black Ibanez bass guitar was Epoch. Countless lines of tiny black letters scrawled across white eyes, denoting a fascination with books, learning, and history. He was the band historian/bookworm as well as rhythm guitarist, on bass while Chrono was on frontman duty. Epoch wore a gray t-shirt tucked into black slacks over tan skin topped with long straight black hair, worn loose.

Standing across from Epoch was the band's lead guitarist holding a dark red Jackson half-V. This was Draconis, the flashy one. Patterned across bright orange eyes was a dragon screaming with wings spread. Shockingly bright red hair hung in tight braids all over his head all the way down past his shoulders. Seemed to have a taste for flashy clothing too; he was clad in white jeans with flames in an aggressive orange curling up his legs and matching white denim hooded vest. Aside from being eye-catching and occasionally obnoxious, he didn't serve the band in any other capacity than being a damn talented lead axeman.

Tinkering with settings on his Korg keyboard back near the drums stood Cypher with a headset on over short spiky blonde hair. Green eyes with random code glyphs and characters scattered across them scan back and forth over his sliders. Pale skin wraps a body leaner in build than the rest of the band; Cypher was the band's techie/resident geek. Didn't have much use for huge muscles. He was dressed comfortably in a too-big dark green band t-shirt and _really_ baggy black pants.

Sitting behind the huge Pearl drumset near Cypher was the band's 'big guy'. Demon was his name and he looked every bit the part. Seeming taller than his 6 and a half foot frame due to serious muscle size, his head and chin were covered in not-quite uniform black stubble. It lacked uniformity due to the random scars and jagged marks covering much of his face. He had similar ones all over his arms and neck. One particularly nasty one sliced vertically up his face through his left eye. His eyes, above his other distinguishing features, spoke volumes of his temperament. They were an angry bloody red with reptilian vertical slits for pupils, framed by what appeared to be permanent scowl. Demon was the type of guy who only seemed to have two facial expressions; a disdainful scowl for normal and a _lethal_ sneer when angry. A sleeveless black t-shirt hangs off his massive upper torso and black leather pants cover his legs. Not polished leather though; these were the type of pants worn more for their double purpose as armor than their appearance.

Collectively, with Z on vocals, they form The Creatures From Elsewhere.

After Z finishes up his meet & greet and steps back from the group to address them all, he drops the hood from his head and peers at his band-mates.

"Ok, so did you guys go over the set-list?"

Chrono steps forward and nods.

"Certainly, boss. Epoch and Cypher both had some changes they wanted to suggest."

Z nods.

"Oh, really? Cool. Any issues I should be aware of?"

Chrono looks sheepish a second.

"Uh..yeah, about that…"

Z narrows his eyes.

"About_ what_?"

The man with a clock in his eyes shrugs helplessly.

"Demon and Draconis forgot their bass drivers."

A flat look crosses the astral being's face as his gaze drifts over to the negligent band-members. Demon returns his gaze with a look that would have been flat if it weren't for his perma-scowl. Draconis just doodled with guitar like he wasn't part of the conversation. Sighing helplessly, his attention shifts back to Chrono.

"Ugh…ok. I'll take care of it."

With that, he pads over to Epoch. The band's historian with part of it written across his eyes looks up from his bass as Z approaches. The astral being stops in front of him and smiles as Cypher starts toward them.

"So I heard you two have some song suggestions?"

Cypher steps up, nodding spiky blonde hair as Epoch opens his mouth to speak. His voice comes out a clean accentless baritone, all purely inflected words and articulation.

"Yeah, boss. I was thinking perhaps we should cut Relapse and do Iridium. Cypher thinks that a more instrumental piece, like Mouths, after the medley would be a good break while the other band sets up."

Cypher, as yet silent, holds out a piece of paper with writing scribbled across it.

Z accepts it and glances at it, going over how the changes would affect the flow of the show and trying to accommodate for time. Pursing his lips, he shakes his head.

"We would have to cut Kiss to put in Mouths. Think that would work?"

He hands the set-list to Epoch who glances at it then hands it to Cypher. He just takes it, glances at it, then nods in silent acquiescence.

Z nods and takes it back from him, padding over to Chrono and handing him the revised list and steps away from them, pulling his vest off.

"Who's ready for the warm-up?"

The entire band looks up from their instruments, even the disinterested Draconis.

Epoch smirks and steps forward, unslinging the bass guitar. He speaks as he sets it on the rack.

"Do we have a choice, boss?"

Z smirks and shakes his head, kicking his boots off in a shower of blue sparks.

"No. I have to beat Demon's ass for forgetting his bass driver _again._"

Chrono and Epoch share a look and laugh, stretching and ditching their shirts. Demon growls, his face training into that lethal sneer he's so good at, and stands from behind his kit. Bones crackle as he flexes his huge hands and stretches. Draconis sighs and sets his guitar down, looking defeated as he pads over to pair off with a perturbed-looking Cypher.

Warm-ups for shows consisted of a strange sparring match neither of them had ever understood or appreciated.

Z insisted that they beat the hell out of each other _before _every show to work out a band's typical tension. The astral being himself seemed to derive some amusement from limiting himself to fighting as if a human. He also welcomed them to attempt to kill him if they could hit him and promised he'd never kill them.

Didn't stop him from relieving them of limbs though. He _did _always put them back.

While Epoch and Chrono seemed to enjoy the training opportunity and Demon seemed to just enjoy trying to kill Z, Draconis and Cypher neither one had much use for fighting. The red-headed guitarist preferred to keep his fingers undamaged. As such, he generally only attacked with his feet. While that was usually sufficient against lesser opponents, they weren't Z.

Z always made him pay dearly for that rather arrogant fighting focus.

Draconis also figured he was going to take a light beating for his forgetfulness.

Cypher, on the other hand, just didn't like to fight. He carried a knife for a reason. He was a technical wizard, knew all the crew's electronics inside and out, and was never happier then when either lost in his music or playing with something complicated. Fighting for him usually consisted of ducking away and stabbing a lot.

That wasn't often that effective against Z though.

The whole group moves off away from the equipment set-up and gathers under one of the large overhead light-sets. Epoch and Chrono pair off, shirtless and stretching tattooed torsos as they get ready. Draconis and Cypher just stand and do something suspiciously like sulking, the red-haired guitarist gathering his braids and tying them off behind his head in a pony-tail. Demon growls faintly, working massively built arms and shoulders.

Z stretches his arms behind his back and looks over at the crew.

"Who's first?"

Epoch and Chrono dart forward, answering his grin with a simultaneous attack.

The bald bassist leaps forward, throwing a kick at Z's face as Epoch dives in towards the astral being's knees, in a football-like tackle.

The white-haired monster leaps _between_ them, twisting completely horizontal between the both of them and flipping to his feet to land about where they started from.

Epoch rolls back to his feet as Chrono lands. The bassist throws a hand out and the guitarist catches it, Chrono yanking Epoch back toward the astral being. The dark-haired guitarist skips forward two steps and leaps forward, throwing a spear-like right hand at Z's face. White hair whips around as Z springs to the side, darting out of the way of Epoch's heavy strike.

Right into Chrono's incoming attack.

The bald bassist had stepped forward, throwing his left leg out in a heavy kick out at waist level. The astral being throws his hands forward and slaps down on the side of Chrono's leg, throwing the bassist off balance as he tries to put his foot back down. Z bounces backward off his deflection and spins away.

His back leg lashes out as he spins and slams into Chrono's stomach.

Clock-faced eyes go wide as he is knocked off his feet, the wind leaving his lungs with a grunt as he tumbles backward.

Z never stops though; he steps immediately into Epoch's onrushing attack.

The two engage in a high-speed game of slap-boxing, each throwing fast strikes at the face and body, each deflecting and blocking just as quickly, neither showing any distinct advantage. Bone thumps against bone, skin smacking as they beat the hell out of each other's arms.

Chrono picks himself up off the floor and catches his breath, prodding at tender ribs.

Even pulling his punches, Z hit like a freight train.

Z throws a light punch toward Epoch's face, the guitarist rewarding it by grabbing the outstretched wrist and yanking on it. He compliments this by stepping forward and ramming his other forearm into the astral being's face.

Bone crunches as Epoch manages to break Z's nose.

Z's head snaps back, curiously electric blood spraying from the shattered bone.

Chrono had sprinted across the space as Epoch pulled off his attack on Z, stepping up from his toes into a massive uppercut as Z spins, nose broken. Instead of the impact he was expecting—any normal man would be practically blind after Epoch's attack—his fist passes through empty air.

Z had dropped to the ground, rolling onto his side and scissoring his legs out.

Chrono's time-faced eyes go wide again as he finds himself falling face-first toward the floor. Z's legs laced between his and twisted them backward, out from beneath him, as the astral being rolls over. Z bounces off his palms, using immense upper body strength to spring back to his feet.

Chrono's left cheekbone cracks as his face smacks the concrete floor.

He groans and rolls to his back as Epoch leaps over him. The rule was 2 knockdowns or otherwise being forced to submit. Chrono had just fallen his 2nd time; he was done.

Epoch steps into engage the astral being again, Z's nose already mended. He steps up in a fairly straightforward boxing pattern. Leads with two quick left jabs followed by a quick but hard right hook. Z bats away both lefts, deftly steps beneath the hook.

The guitarist's letter-covered gaze goes wide as he realizes he'd just made his first serious mistake.

His back was exposed to Z.

Following through with his missed right hook so as not to lose balance, he spins all the way around with the missed punch and throws his left out in a vicious blind backhand. He turns his face as fast as he can to get eyes on Z again.

This turned very quickly into a mistake as well.

Z ducks again, swinging low under the backhand and stepping forward with his own left hand. It rams into Epoch's jaw hard enough to break it, a _crack_ sounding across the warehouse.

Cold-cocked, the guitarist tumbles to the floor, eyes rolled back.

The astral being slaps Epoch awake, blue-purple sparks popping at the shattered jaw and flash-healing it. As the dark-headed musician's eyes roll forward and he focuses through the text patterned across his eyes, Z hauls him to his feet by an outstretched arm.

White-blue eyes flash faintly at Epoch as Z grins at him.

"You alright?"

Epoch laughs ruefully and rubs his jaw.

"Yeah, boss. I think Chrono's face hurts though." This last is said with a laugh and a glance toward the still on-assed bassist.

Z smirks, wiggling his nose as he pads over to Chrono. The bald-headed bassist was squinting out of his left eye, blood dripping from his nose and his left cheekbone turning a sickly purple-blue.

"You alright there, mate?"

Chrono squints up at him, trying not to smirk.

"Something like that. My face hurts."

Z laughs and nods.

"Yeah, I imagine. Can you stand?" He offers a hand as he says it.

Chrono nods and takes the proffered hand, pulling himself to his feet.

Z steps forward, white-blue eyes flaring brightly as he focuses on the wound to his bassist's face. His right hand jumps up and slaps the injured bone. It was only a light tap, barely moving Chrono's head, but it _SNAPS_ with an electric pop, the impact flashing in the vague semi-darkness of the warehouse.

The bald head with black clock-faced eyes steps back, the shattered cheekbone mended.

Z smirks at him.

"Better now?"

Chrono rubs his cheek, matching the astral being's smirk.

"Yeah. That was rude."

"What? I moved, you missed.'

Z tries to keep the grin off his face as he says it but fails terribly.

Chrono narrows eyes at him and laughs, shaking his head.

"Yeah, fair enough."

Chrono pads away in silence, pairing off with Epoch. The two wander off to the side, discussing the sparring match in whispers as Z backs off toward the center of the impromptu fighting ring. The astral being's eyes drift lazily around to the room, passing an eager Demon and skipping an irritable-looking Cypher. They fall on Draconis, who just looks…resigned.

"Ready, Draco?" Z quips.

The red-braided guitarist smirks and shakes his head, stepping forward.

"No, but I have to anyway."

"True enough. Any new tricks?" Z wiggles his fingers in anticipation.

Orange eyes narrow at Z, a brow arching.

"Like I'd tell you? You're gonna beat my ass all the same."

Z starts to quip at him again but stops and nods his head, laughing as Draconis steps into the light. The two square off, Z measuring up his opponent and the guitarist trying to decide where he's going to attack first.

They pause there; Draconis unwilling to strike the opening blow and Z with a faint smirk slowly building on his face. They lock eyes. Z flat out grins and shakes his head, Draconis cussing under his breath.

Suddenly the guitarist was air-borne. Like 6 feet straight up.

Spinning as he sprung upward, Draco's right foot swung out from around his left-side and arched at Z's face in a back hook-kick. All power was put into this convulsive attack; here was a kick meant to break a man's neck.

There was none there to break though; Z ducked it, swinging low, and cresting his right hand at Draco's mid-riff as he stands back up.

Draco had other plans though. His pivot left foot, freed by his kick, swings forward and kicks off the offered fist. A vision of swirling white and red as he spins away off the momentum and swings back to his feet, Draconis turns to face Z out of easy arm's reach.

Draconis didn't fight with his arms so that was good for him.

Z smirked, impressed as usual by the guitarist's flashy style. Something dangerous flashes in the dragon-patterned orange eyes and the white-clad attacker dances forward lightly. Left leg first, kicks arc out at Z's face, chest and hips, each blocked and batted away.

Z bounces off his deflections and throws a heavy left fist at Draco's face.

It's answered by a forearm block, Draco dropping his foot as he moves downward with the defense. Z's arm straightens out to be shoved away, exposing the astral being's side for a half-second.

The guitarist spins to his left, into the block, and his right foot whips out, slapping across the back of Z's off-balance front knee. The astral being grunts as bone cracks and he wobbles on the leg for the briefest of instances.

Draco doesn't let up. He'd never stopped his spin, right foot arcing all the way around him from the first kick and slamming into the side of Z's face as the astral being wobbles.

_CRACK_

Z's head snaps around and his body follows, tumbling to the floor. Popping to his feet and shaking his head, Z grins at Draconis and laughs as he rubs the side of face.

"Ow. Nice one. You _did_ learn some new tricks."

An eyebrow arches above an orange eye as Draco bounces lightly on his feet.

The both sprint toward each other.

Draco lofts a left foot at Z's face as they close the space, a hand batting it away as the astral being ducks in close. He throws a couple of punches at Draco's exposed mid-section. The guitarist falls back a step, dropping his forearms to absorb the blows. Z presses, throwing a few more blows out at his opponent's mid-section and a last shot at Draco's face.

The guitarist had stepped back for a reason though.

He lifts one long leg and takes the punches with his shin like a kick-boxer. Bouncing off the force of Z's strikes, he retreats far enough back to whip a kick out at the fist meant for his face. The impact snaps Z's hand away and throws him off-balance a second time.

Draco tries to capitalize again and lunges forward, leg cocked in to his chest and ready to go off like a cannon-shot. The foot explodes toward the astral being's face.

Or where it was.

Z had rolled with the deflected punch, dropping beneath the kick. Wrapping strong hands around the extended leg above him, he spins and yanks his attacker over his shoulder by the leg. Red braids flailing, Draco is slapped face-first into the floor. Quick last-second thought had him cover his head with his arms, preventing a similar fate as Chrono.

Z wasn't done yet.

As Draconis hit the floor, Z stood and stepped forward, dropping the white-clad leg. Stepping down with one foot into the cleft of Draco's left knee, he bends the left foot back over his own and crouches, pinning the foot down and over-extending the knee he was sitting on. His other foot wedges between the guitarist's legs, holding him in place. Draco grunts and tries to get his hands underneath to lift up but Z leans forward and snatches them both, yanking them straight behind Draco's back and clenching at the wrists.

He tugs gently, pulling at the shoulder joints and compressing Draco's spine by sitting on his over-extended leg and pulling the guitarist's weight against the foot wedged into the soft spot between his legs.

"Submit!" Draconis grunts from the floor, neck strained against the pain shooting up his back and through his shoulders.

Z stands, releasing the guitarist and stepping back.

Draco stands, red braids falling in front of a perturbed expression.

"Am I done now, boss?"

Z just smiles placidly.

"Yeah, you alright?"

Draco, brushing dust off his clothes and off a couple of light scrapes, gives Z an off-put look and nods. "Yeah, I'm fine." A curt response as he turns to limp lightly out of the light.

Z nods.

"Good fight," he says as he peers over at the irate-looking Cypher. "Your turn."

Green eyes with strange code characters narrow at Z as the skinny keyboardist approaches him, stepping into the "ring" under the light. Stepping up to Z, his stance settles, hands in his pockets and shoulders loose. A soft, sibilant voice, articulate and almost sharp in inflection.

"You know I'm going to cut you right, boss?"

Z grins and ribs at the reclusive techie.

"Now there's the Cypher I was lookin' for. Where were ya? You were all quiet earlier."

Cypher's eyes narrow again.

"We going to do it or what?"

Z nods, grinning still.

"Yeah, man. Whenever you're ready."

There's no pretense, no indication. Only a sudden flash as steel arcs out toward Z's face.

The _click_ of the knife is heard as the astral being ducks under the swing, his right hand backhanding the knife-hand of his attacker.

_POP_

Steel glitters in the light once more as the knife flips out of Cypher's slapped hand. It spirals in the air up and over his head even as he turns with Z, the astral being darting under his arm to get behind him. He lashes out with a backfist as he turns, the attack sailing over Z's head but serving to turn the keyboardist around faster.

Z catches the knife and turns, holding it out to his opponent.

"Nice try," Said with a faint grin, the handle of the weapon offered up.

Cypher, off-hand in his pocket still, steps forward lightly and snatches the blade with the other.

Steel sings through the warehouse again, a knife flashing from his pocket.

Z ducks under the attack, stepping forward and lofting a right hand at Cypher's face. The other knife comes up, stabbing at the astral being's forearm. He snatches it upward and crabs a step to the left, trying to get out. Cypher crabs a step to _his left_ and lashes out with his right hand at the same time, the blade finding Z's shoulder and drawing a red line down the back of his upper arm.

Z stands and looks at the gash, blood crackling with energy dribbling down his arm. Arching a brow, he looks at Cypher with a faintly perturbed look.

The spiky-haired techie just shrugs with a faint smirk.

"Told you I was going to cut you, boss."

Z nods and laughs, patting at the already-sealing gash. The blood on his skin fades, seeming to soak into the pores.

"That you did. It's my turn, I think."

Steel glitters in the light as Cypher drops his stance and brings both knives to bear.

"Then come on then. Let's get this over with."

Z darts forward, leaping forward and sailing at Cypher with a knee.

The keyboardist falls away from the attack, spinning away so it flies harmlessly past. Continuing on through the spin, both blades sing through the air as he whips them around at where Z's back should be. Problem is that it wasn't there to attack.

The astral being had struck the floor after sailing past Cypher and bounced off to the side. With a faint tensing, he sprang up and backward, throwing his feet over head and back-flipping toward Cypher. As the keyboardists arms sail around with bladed ends, Z's feet slap downward as he lands.

Feet impact arms and toss the keyboardist face-first at the floor.

Metal bounces away, scraping on the concrete floor, the knives skittering across the ground.

Cypher had rolled into the fall and springs from the ground, sliding across the floor to one of the knives.

The other knife slams into his right thigh with a wet _thunk_, tossed by a deadly accurate Zeraphim. Cypher barks quietly, frustration and pain, and grabs his other knife while trying to stand.

Wasn't a good idea.

The astral being had sprinted along behind his thrown knife. Just as Cypher got to his knees, wobbling on the injured leg, Z leapt out and rammed his shoulder into the keyboardist's chest, falling away after.

Here, the physical effect of 240 pound man violently impacting his body weight with that of a 190 pound man of the same height becomes readily apparent.

Cypher is lifted from his feet and tossed across the room, slamming into the wall with a _CLANG_.

Crumpled at the base of the wall and in the process of rolling his bloodied face away from the metal wall, the keyboardist blinks his eyes open as Z pads up to him. Trying to focus through the characters patterned on his eyes, Cypher peers up at the astral being.

The knife is snatched from his leg sharply and a hand slapped over it. Sharp pain is muffled immediately by a soft warming sensation. Cypher's vision suddenly clears as the energy rips through his senses, shocking him to coherence.

Energy crackles at his face, dancing in his sight as it heals the cracked jaw from impact with the wall. Z tugs the keyboardist to his feet and ruffles the spiky hair.

"You alright?"

Cypher blinks his eyes a few more times, glances at the sealed wound on his leg. He glances back up at Z with a nod, stretching out a hand.

"Yeah, boss. It was fun cutting you."

Z laughs and shakes the keyboardist's hand.

"Oh yeah, good times, mate."

Cypher pads off toward his keyboard and Demon strolls into the light, boots thumping at the floor. Blood red eyes narrow at Zeraphim as Demon flexes huge hands, stretching his neck and shoulders out. Z arches a brow at the vicious sneer on the drummer's face.

"So…what are you going to be swinging at me today, Demon?"

The sneer shifts into something scarier and the drummer does something in this deep guttural bass voice, weird and raspy but distinctly amused. Leather-bound hands reach behind his back and draw forth two little black cylinder-like handles.

Flicking his wrists, batons snap out with a segmented _click_, unfolding in a blink.

Holding the heads of the batons up, little sharp points glitter in the light all over the rounded tips of the weapons. That same growling, guttural bass voice from before speaks.

"I'm gonna bounce 'em off your skull, boss."

Z tilts his head, a _what the fuck_ look crossing his face.

"Sticks, man? Shit, this gonna hurt."

Demon quips back, swinging the sticks back behind his arms.

"So? You always take an arm off of me anyway."

Z arches a brow and looks briefly chastised. Then he grins darkly and whips his hands out to his sides. Claws glittering a purple-blue in the light snap out of his fingertips an inch long.

"You make a fine point there, mate."

Nothing more is said.

Nothing more needs to be.

Demon steps forward, the left stick swinging at the astral being's face in a whistling arc. Z ducks it and swats the backspin from the right stick by slapping it away with his claws, metal screaming and sparks flying.

Purple-blue tracers arc toward Demon's face.

Bone snaps as the drummer steps in and yanks his left stick up in front of his face, the heavy steel baton cracking the bones of Z's forearm as Demon bats away the bladed attack. Z spins away, left arm bent at a wonky angle.

A pointed baton head whistles past his face as he faces the drummer, leaning away out of simple prudence.

Demon never ceases his movement. The missed right stick swing builds the momentum for him to lunge forward and bring the left one screaming down toward the top of Z's skull. The astral being arches an eyebrow at the huge lunge then simply steps forward and to _his _left.

For a half a second, Demon's whole heartside is open to him, arm raised and all.

Z sticks his right hand out _hard_and socks the overeager drummer in the nose.

_POP_

Demon reels backward in silence, blood spraying from a shattered nose. Z steps back as the drummer steps back to catch his bearing. With a perturbed look, Z snaps his left arm out. The bone straightens with wet _crunch _and he wiggles around bladed fingers.

When Demon faces him, face bloody and sneering, he speaks.

"Ow."

If Demon registers amusement, he doesn't express it. He answers instead with a lunge, the sticks whistling forward from each side toward Z's waist. They drift in-swing, one up and one down, to cross in the middle like Demon was trying to hack the astral being in half.

Z steps forward, _between_ them.

Purple-blue tracers shear the air, sparks flying and steel screaming as he slaps the sticks away with the backs of the ultra-hard metal jutting from his fingertips. Snatching both hands off the deflection, he stomps forward and double palm-strikes Demon solidly in the chest.

Instead of being lifted from his feet, the huge drummer grunts as the air is knocked from his lungs and drops back a step, his arms reflexively curling back over his head. Sucking in a deep breath, he drops his arms to his side and spits a little blood at Z with an almost...playful sneer.

Z tilts his head as Demon shrugs off _another _solid hit. The astral being would have just crushed the sternum of an average human.

Without any further preamble, they both move to engage.

Demon steps in, left stick flying high towards Z's face again. He begins the motion to step forward again and attack with the right stick but finds an aggressive white-haired monster in his face. The left stick is batted away, jarred in his grip by the scraping of Z's claws. A fist impacts his right elbow as it comes up, knocking the big man off-balance a hair as his 2nd attack is violently stopped.

Prudence has him duck his head to the side as he stumbles backward from his blocked lunge.

5 razor-blades glittering in the light overhead whistle past his face.

That cues the drummer; the game just got a little more serious. Z was about to get rough.

Recovering his balance quickly, Demon has just enough time to spin a stick in front of his chest to deflect another clawed hand ripping him open. And so it begins. Like the match with Epoch earlier, the two combatants lock into a lightning-fast game of slap-boxing, only this time there are weapons involved. Purple-blue streaks circle and weave in front of and around him as Z flurries strikes at him, fingerblades screaming toward him from seemingly 7 directions at once. The big man spins and twirls the batons while dancing a circle in-place with grace belied by his immense size, the astral being working around him as they attack and defend almost faster than the eye can see. Bright sparks fly from the sticks as Z's claws rip up and down their sides and shear off steel shavings.

The drummer feels himself losing momentum and ground, Zeraphim using his heavy muscles against him. He had to break the burst-fight. He watches Z's blurry-fast hands, looking for his chance. An overhand right cross screams toward his face, death glittering on the fingertips.

Now's the time.

Demon abruptly breaks his fluid stick-dance, swinging the right-hand baton to straight up and down between them.

Z's fist slams into the rod, bones cracking in the astral being's hand.

The jarred pause he'd just caused in Z was all Demon needed.

_CRACK_

The left stick slaps against the side of Z's skull _hard_, bone cracking again, and white hair flails wildly as Z's head whips around from the strike. His back becomes exposed and Demon steps forward, dropping both sticks on the astral being's back with a heavy killing strike.

Z slams to the floor, bones crunching underneath the blow.

Demon steps back and waits, looking down at Z's seemingly dead form with something approaching trepidation. Just because the astral being didn't appear to be breathing didn't mean he was anywhere near done yet.

Suddenly, Z springs to his feet with a convulsive shove of his arms. His glittering and faintly glowing blue eyes drip blood from the tear ducts, electric red trickling down his cheeks. His skull had been shattered, as well as 6 or 7 ribs broken and near-destroyed. A human would be dead.

Z looked mildly perturbed.

"Ow. That was unpleasant."

Demon just grins.

"Told ya I was gonna bounce 'em off your skull, boss."

Z grins and holds up 1 blade-tipped finger.

"That's one knockdown. You're not gettin' another one."

Demon whips the sticks through a whistling flourish and drops into a ready stance.

"Then let's finish it."

Demon lunges as the astral being skips forward on his toes. The drummer steps into a fast spin, both sticks whirling upward then whistling downward, screaming _death_ at the coming impact.

Only Z wasn't there for the impact.

One the second skip, Z kicked one leg upward and threw himself into a forward-moving backflip, up and over Demon's head. All 10 of his razor-capped fingers leave purple-blue tracers in the air before him as they shear downward toward the drummer's face.

As Demon completed his spin and launched his attack, his eyes went wide as he realized Z wasn't there anymore.

Not knowing where Z was in a fight was _never_ a good thing.

His reaction was instinctual, was the only thing that prevented him from losing his face.

Buckling his knees with his downward strike, Demon rolls forward and back to his feet, turning to face behind himself, sticks swinging up to the ready.

Z was already standing there, the blood gone from his face, and smirking faintly.

Demon darts forward again, not attacking quite so recklessly this time. The sticks whistle out in a dizzyingly fast pattern of sweeps and spins. Z answers them all with his fingerblades, sparks flashing and steel singing as the astral being hacks more metal shavings from the batons. The twisting purple-blue tracers begin that insanely fast pattern again, streaking in at the drummer from too many directions at once. The batons whip around him as he spins, dodges, and deflects.

He felt his breath starting to grow ragged and sweat beading on his forehead.

Z wasn't outside the bounds of human ability yet or Demon would be on the ground already. But the astral being knew well the incredible things a human trained to the apex of physical prowess was capable of. He also knew how to wear the big drummer out, using Demon's immense size against him.

He knew he had to break the speed again. Problem was that the same trick twice rarely worked on Z and he didn't expect this time to be any different.

But he tried anyway, for lack of other options.

A razor-bladed right hand screams overhand toward the drummer's face and Demon threw the baton up vertically in front of the coming strike.

Z's whispering voice broke into Demon's mind.  
_"Too soon, mate."_

The drummer's bloody red eyes go wide as he realizes the mistake he just made. The strike he'd moved to block was still far enough way that Z had time to change its trajectory.

A grip of iron slaps around Demon's upraised left hand, the baton held stock still by the very same right hand that had been screaming toward the drummer's face less than an instant before. Z tugs sharply, yanking Demon off-balance. The drummer tries desperately to counter by swinging his right baton up clumsily in a strike toward Z's face.

It was already too late though.

The right hand that was holding the drummer's wrist releases and snaps out in a vicious backhand. It catches Demon across the jaw and breaks the bone with a wet _crunch_.

Demon's own right hand, still in clumsy mid-swing, is sheared off at the wrist by an almost casual wave of Z's empty left hand.

The shock of both attacks jolts the fingers open on the hand still attached, the baton falling free. The astral being snatches the falling weapon from the air, stepping into the motion and whipping the steel rod around in a heavy horizontal attack. Demon, still reeling from the blow that broke his jaw, manages to stumble _into_ the strike.

Steel impacts bone with a loud, soggy-sounding _POP_ .

Demon spins on one wobbly foot, the other leg having gone almost totally numb with the crushing blow to his skull. Even as he fell, he raised his remaining hand in submission. Hitting the floor hard, the drummer peers up at the light-set on the ceiling, his vision beginning to fade, going black in places and edges distorting. His left leg was numb, along with most of his right arm, an injury deeper seated than the severed wrist screwing with his central nervous system.

Suddenly, Z is there, leaning over him and talking, a look almost like worry on his face.

His mouth was moving, but Demon couldn't hear him, couldn't hear anything over the sound of his own ragged breathing and the irregular beating of his heart, the damage to his nerves playing hell with even his involuntary muscle control. He speaks, or tries, the words coming out as gravelly croaking.

"Skull…cracked. Can't…feel shit."

Those hands, the ones that so recently had been capped by razorblades, grasp Demon's head and snatch him into a sitting position. Their grip was so strong as to make steel seem flimsy. Z eyes flash brilliantly, near blinding the drummer and forcing him to close his own blood red eyes.

A sudden sharp cold shocks him to his senses.

It washes out from his broken skull and down his bruised limbs, the numbness vanishing under the intense chill. The drummer grunts inwardly as he feels the cracked pieces of his cranium stitching back together and the damage to his brain repaired. Z's voice begins filtering back into his ears. Or else he was just suddenly able to hear again.

"You alright, mate?"

Demon blinks open his eyes, shaking his head to clear the cobwebs out. His voice comes out better this time, still gravelly and deep but not as shattered sounding as a moment ago,

"Yeah, boss. Although I think I'd feel better if I wasn't missing my hand."

Zeraphim laughs and walks over to retrieve the severed appendage. Crouching down before Demon again, he lifts the drummer's blood stump and pushes the hand back onto it. Clapping the fingers of his left hand around it, Demon jerks sharply as the astral being's eyes flash, reattaching it with a surge of power. Letting go, he looks back at the battered percussionist and grins.

"Now are you alright?"

Demon smirks as he lifts his hand and works the fingers, flexing and stretching them.

"Yeah, I think I'll live."

Z laughs again and stands, pulling the drummer to his feet.

"Gonna stop forgetting your bass driver?"

Demon chuckles again.

"I might. Having my skull caved in is never pleasant but cracking yours _was_ kinda fun, boss."

Z laughs and turns, walking out of the ring of light, motioning for the group to join.

The astral being flicks one hand at the big sliding doors, forcing them open but not so violently this time. The last remnants of day were still fading behind the treeline and the mountain above, leaving the sky a deep indigo with stars attempting to shine crew all follow after him, stepping outside into the early night-time. Draconis and Cypher were silent as usual, Chrono and Epoch chatting quietly, discussing the entire sparring session. Z stops and turns to face them. Just as the quiet of night begins to settle around them, Chrono and Epoch falling silent, Z's warm, rich baritone breaks the near-silence.

"Alright. You lot have about two more hours before I need you up the mountain. I've got a few spare bass drivers so don't worry about that. You all ready?"

The entire crew nods and Chrono speaks up.  
"We're ready to rock. I suppose we should probably do a quick run through the new setlist?"

Z nods. "That's a fantastic idea."

Epoch breaks in. "Any specific pointers on how to get where we're going, boss?"

Z points up the mountain, almost directly northwest of them.

"It's about 2 miles walk in exactly that direction. I assume you all have your gear carriers?"

The whole crew nods as one. Z nods in return.

"Good. Be there. You know how to contact me if the need arises."

With this last, he steps forward and extends a hand with curiously glowing fingertips.

The band cycles through, shaking his hand and laughing with him as he makes quiet jokes about the sparring match. Finishing up, the band turns to head back inside the warehouse and Z turns to face the mountain. His glittering, glowing blue eyes find the moon as it peeks over the treeline and narrow on it, his expression dark but playful.

"It's gonna be one helluva show."

Thunder rolls across the landscape, bouncing off the silent trees and rattling the quiet little town the warehouse sat in. Left floating in the breeze where Z had been standing was a thin cloud of dust. Just as the wind picked up to wash the dust from the air, the shape of an ornate gothic cross coalesces.

The wind gusts once and the image blows away, torn apart by the cool, wet air.

* * *

Some final notes. I must thank again the one and only **_AilisRaevyn_** for her fantastic story, _Beautifully Sacred_, and her permission for me to go ahead and write this tale. I would also like to thank any of you that have waited for this update. Moreover, I'd like to thank you for your reviews and the simple fact of you reading the story in the first place. Zeraphim and I enjoy sharing our stories with everyone and the more, the merrier.

Also, I've published another completed story since I last updated this one. It's called _The Random Atrocity_ and is based on the story _Hit By Destiny_, written by the hilarious, awesome, and sarcastic **_OCDMess _**who, regardless of whether we always get along or not, is neat person and a wonderfully talented author whose work has been a massively profound influence on my writing style. Her stylistic influences have done great things to clean up and refine my own prose and I can't thank her enough for it.

So if you are interested, go check out my other story and let me know what you think. It was great fun to write and it all tumbled out of me in about 3 days when I wrote it. Reviews are welcome, no matter where they come from and what they say cuz ya know what? I lurves me some tasty feedbacks! :D

Thanks!


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